Behind the Mirror
by Mira Kial
Summary: An exposé written by Uxie, the self-declared Historian of the Legendaries. As the Renegade Giratina emerges from his thousand-year banishment, he enters an unfamiliar world where technology is thinning the gap between humans and Pokemon. The Legendaries now face many reasons to reveal themselves to the human world... which could lead either to a great peace, or a grand destruction.
1. Yuu Xi

_yuu xi –_

 _1971, Georgia_

"Perhaps I'll write a book about him," she realized, opening her eyes to the orange-red sky. "That would be the proper thing to do."

It was a brisk evening, and fall was impatient to let winter take its place. Her sister, lounging near the last apple tree to give up its leaves, peeked one eye open at her. "You've said that twenty times in your life, but have you ever actually written a _whole_ book?"

Yuu Xi cringed and stood up, stretching her stiff shoulders. "Why, no. I never found the inspiration to continue… or I'd get so distracted by other topics, I'd start a new project entirely…"

A hawk screeched across the sunset and nosedived, catching something from the distant lake and careening away somewhere else to eat it. Xi shivered and buried her hands in her overcoat, turning to look at her sister. "But don't you think it's time I go through with this? I can't stop thinking about all of his memories _…_ his mind, his experiences, his soul…"

"I _know_ you can't." Mey sighed, her voice oddly tight. She sat up straighter, motioning for her sister to join her on the ground.

Xi did so, preparing for her sister's advice. _It would be too dangerous to publish the kind of knowledge you have,_ she'd say. Or, _He would find out, and he would be angry with you…_

Mey only smiled. "No, none of that. You didn't need me to tell you that, you knew already…" She looked down and thought for a moment, her thoughts wandering to the Renegade, and all that he had gone through…

It was times like these that Xi remembered how old her sister was. Most of the time, Mey was so _youthful_. Her skin glowed and her pretty light-brown eyes were so full of joy, but when her thoughts came to such profound sorrow as the Renegade's, her mouth and her eyes seemed to fade into wrinkles…

Mey eventually exhaled and massaged her pale temples, closing her eyes. "Sometimes I wish I could write a book too, but you know, I would never have that kind of attention span." She looked at Xi and chuckled slightly. "You know?"

"Yes," said Xi, putting a hand on her sister's denim-clothed knee. "But I think you could. You've so many great ideas."

Mey brushed a strand of dyed-crimson hair out of her face. " _Pfft._ Well, thanks, I'm glad someone thinks so." She smirked. "Anyway. I wanted to say, essentially, that I know _why_ you want to undertake this task, and that's because you have all these thoughts rolling around in your brain, and they've been there so long that you just need to _dump_ them somewhere. Am I right?"

"You are," said Xi, tugging at a strand of grass. "And dumping them on you and Azi wouldn't help. Both of you are psychics too; you'd have to bear the burden with me…"

She remembered still, that day ten years ago – the day he approached her and gave her everything in his mind. The darkness in his demeanor, she had remembered so clearly. The hatred – for himself, for his surroundings, for his family, for everything he had experienced – such raw _hatred,_ and all the fear and the loneliness underneath it, all the fragility behind it…

"Which is _why_ ," said Mey, grabbing Xi's wrist, "that you should do it. You'll feel better if you write it out. But keep it _secret,_ Xi _._ Nobody should read this book, except maybe us and Azi… but don't let any humans read it. The world isn't ready to know all the truth yet…"

Xi narrowed her eyes. "I know that already, Mey."

"But don't _forget_ it," said Mey, lowering her head. "You remember everything you're told, but please let this be at the forefront of your mind. As much as you love teaching humans, don't teach them anything about _us_. Nor about the Renegade. You've been wanting to do that for many years, and it frightens me."

 _But don't we all wish the humans could just KNOW who we are?_

The thought came from Xi, but it touched Mey's heart and echoed back to her sister.

Mey stood up abruptly and kicked off her sandals, sending a haphazard wind of energy out towards the setting sky. Her frustration was tangible. "The time will come when it needs to come, and I certainly hope it's sooner rather than later, but I just know it will be a _dangerous_ time! And I don't know what we'll do, if the humans try to pursue us more earnestly. What will _happen_ to us? Will we die? Will we be forced into obeying the humans, just like every other creature is…?"

"Now is not the time to worry, Mey," sighed Xi, stroking the roots of the tree.

"Isn't it, however!" said Mey. "Turn around and look at me."

Surprised at Mey's sudden sternness, Xi stood up and faced her sister squarely. _Calm down, love…_

Mey breathed in exasperation and stepped forward, extending her palms to the russet sky. "I, Mey She of China, am a two-thousand, five-hundred-and-forty-two-year-old psychic. I was born as a small, elfish creature, but I have acquired human form, and so has a host of forty-odd magical immortals, not the least of which know how to mutate themselves _and_ others at will, how to bend the laws of gravity, the laws of quantum _physics,_ who could probably create continents – _planets,_ even, if they truly put their minds to it!" Her eyes were wide and shone with longing. "And the humans know nothing – they are _required_ to know nothing… about any of it. If they knew this, they would _want_ it, all of it. They're too intelligent to even _think_ about resisting the urge to work in tandem with us. And because we are frail, and humans are frail… we could cause much more destruction than good."

Xi was silent. _You're right,_ was all she could think.

Mey lowered her hands. Her thoughts were thick, like soup. She voiced none of them, but Xi recognized them; they were very similar to her own.

"The Alpha knows how we all feel," sighed Mey, bringing her pale hands together and absentmindedly sparking bits of energy between her fingers. "But he's paid attention to the myths and the legends. The humans used to know some things about us, in ancient history… they wrote stories about us… but these days those legends are just bedtime stories. Nobody believes them anymore. It's for the best, of course…"

"…But it will happen someday," said Xi, taking a step forward.

Mey looked up. "When?"

"With the trajectory of the humans' course of study, with all the places trainers and professors are taking their research, it _will_ happen. I don't think we'll have to wait any more centuries. I truly believe it's a matter of decades."

The sky became purple, and the wind picked up, making the long plain-grass sway with it. Mey closed her eyes, feeling the chill envelop her skin. "When you write your book, Xi…" She opened her eyes, feeling a bit calmer. "I want to read it." A brief pause, and then she stepped toward her sister, squeezing her upper arm. "Actually, I want to read your drafts. I'll help you edit it!"

Xi smiled, bemused. _Look at you, all cheery again._ "I thought you'd said you don't have that kind of attention span."

Mey pursed her lips. "But when it comes to evaluating somebody _else's_ work, I have all the attention span in the world!" She pranced towards the tree and retrieved her satchel, adjusting it onto her shoulder. "I love giving all of my opinions and advice… and I know you certainly weren't aware of that before."

"Why, no," said Xi, gathering a bit of wind and lifting herself up a few feet. She plucked a voluminous red apple from the branches and landed firmly on the ground, continuing, "Shall we go home?"

"Indeed, we _shall_ ," proclaimed Mey, marching forward. "You're a bit old fashioned sometimes. All this _shall_ and _perhaps_ business."

"England did that to me," laughed Xi, quickening her pace to catch up. "Everyone's so stuffy there."

"But Kia doesn't talk all stuffy, and she's lived in Britain for seventy-odd years."

" _Kia_ arrived there in the twentieth century," scoffed Xi. They came to a low wooden fence at the foot of the hill, and she levitated herself delicately over it. " _I_ was there in Oxford University's youth. The world had hardly just invented plumbing…"

"Ugh, don't remind me…"

They continued towards Mey's townhouse by the highway, and the night slid in smoothly and silently.


	2. Gravity

_gravity –_

 _1015 A.D._

He was utterly disoriented.

It felt… well, rare for him. He – virtually the discoverer and master of Gravity itself – to feel unbalanced in any sense of the word. And yet, here he was. Hovering powerlessly between two red giants, torn between gravities, and unsure which was up and which was down. Or, really, if the two words even had a mote of meaning.

 _You, Giratina, are in fact an imbecile._

Brilliant, vibrant tongues of fire licked at him, torturing his senses and numbing his mind. The stars tugged on him and each other, like greedy children. He was a speck of dust, a hopeless mite of antimatter, amidst a flood of starfire and starlight…

 _Free me,_ he whispered to the smaller star, tugging with all of his being at the fabric of space. _Let me float away, let me fade into the fabric, become nothing again…_

He should not have strayed this far.

The Reverse World was treacherous – beautiful, yes, but deadly. It was _underneath_ the fabric of space, behind it; thus, everything was unpredictable. Like an idiot, he occasionally delighted himself – even if it threatened his life – in attempting to discover all of its impossible secrets. Such as, for instance, why stars suddenly decided to peak in their gravitational pull at various intervals... in such manner as to kill him…

"I am the Prince of the Horizon," he stated to no one. He flexed every muscle in his body. The pain was incredible; exquisite. "I have the power to deny gravity's greed. I can become space itself. I can become atomless; massless…"

The pull lifted just slightly enough.

With a mighty wrench of force and fire, he cried out in agony and flung the gravity off of himself. He forced himself away from the stars, and though the heat continued, he felt the pull weaken... bit by bit, horribly slowly, but it weakened nonetheless…

"I am without question an imbecile," he half-laughed to himself. The pain and heat threw itself about his body in waves, but at last, he was free… free to float away from the battling stars, free to watch their light swell and pulse and throb in the night… free to die of heat exhaustion, were it even possible for an immortal…

 _You have one of the strongest bodies of any of us. The only thing that can kill a creature of your caliber, likely, is to be swallowed by a star._ Ao Zhi had said it to him right before his banishment, with her gold eyes narrowed in suspicion. As small as the she-elf's brain was, her wisdom had proved correct…

An injured animal, he sat in empty space, floating at a snail's speed away, watching the stars – or rather, antimatter stars – shrink before him. There was nothing else for trillions of light years, trillions of light-centuries. Simply blackness, the stars, and him. A burnt, exhausted, immortal dragon…

 _But keep in mind, Lord Giratina. Arceus has told you already and I'll tell you too. You mustn't commit to suicide. You must not._

"Mustn't indeed," he muttered at the stars. He could not invent a word to describe the pain. It ripped at every cell, every nerve. Only a year ago, he had decided he'd make the journey to the nearest anti-star and try to end his own life, but after feeling that level of pain, he realized he could never attempt that again…

 _You are not designed to die, Gira. None of us are; we were given immortality so that we could live._

He closed his eyes. "It is painful to die, Azi, and it is painful to live."

Yuu Xi opened her eyes.

She tore the blankets from her. It was so hot, so sweaty. Nausea swelled within her and she folded forward, letting her knotted hair drape over her bare feet. _Breathe, Xi. Breathe…_

Mey was asleep, but she was still a psychic. The loudness of Xi's mind could wake her up, should she stay inside for too long. Fumbling to find the edge of the bed and balance her mind, she rose stiffly to her feet. The blackness of the night-time bedroom swam with dizzy speckles of light. _Peace to my mind, clarity to my thoughts… Order to my soul…_

She felt her way to the door, found her coat on a nearby chair, and half-ran to the kitchen. _Shoes… no, I don't need them._ Crickets chirped outside and wind rustled at the old door. The doorknob was freezing and her fingers almost jumped at the shock as she turned it to open the door.

 _Ahh._ Cold air embraced her. So different from the hellish star-heat…

"Augh!" she moaned, pinching her elbows and rubbing her arms. _Do I have a fever?_ Nervously, she held out her fingers and gathered cold air inside them, moistening them lightly and tossing the cold mist between her hands as she stepped across the grass meadow. _I haven't felt so unbalanced in quite some time…_

Her stomach was sick but the frigid poking of the grass against her feet was helping. It refreshed her skin, brought cold to her nerve endings and slowed her heart. The world around her was so dark. Only a few stars managed to peek out from the night-clouds…

 _I didn't know stars could be so cruel._ Unexpectedly, a tear tempted her eye and she made the mistake of inviting it. Her knees weakened and she crumpled into the grass, weeping. Everything was cold, wet. All of Giratina's sadness, all of his pain… all of his sick loneliness, his hopelessness… it overwhelmed her.

She heard Mey wake up. No, it was too late. She shouldn't have come to visit her home in Georgia. She was in no condition to be with a fellow psychic, not in this mental state! She couldn't burden Mey with all of these emotions, not when Mey - the very "Being of Emotion" - already felt the emotions of the whole world, and surely would buckle under the weight of Giratina's evil, his pain, his darkness –

"Be still, sister."

Two cold hands pressed against her wet cheeks. Uxie's eyes flew open and the tears tumbled ever faster. "No, Mey, no – "

"Hush, Xi, and breathe." Mey's fingers found her cheekbone, the back of her jaw, the soft place between her hairline and her ear. She knelt down slowly in front of Xi, and her eyes were both focused and distant. "Breathe deeply and let me in."

"No, please." But she could not resist; the refreshing _calm_ flowed from Mey's fingertips like medicine, and the tears continued. Her mouth quivered and she sniffed. She felt like a child.

"Everything is all right, everything is all right…" Mey's warm aura crept into Xi's mind and, like a candle, lit the darkness. Xi sighed a long, teary sigh and closed her eyes, entering her mind.

Giratina was floating there, motionless, just letting the pain torture him as it slowly, inch-by-inch, subsided into a dull roar. It was the pain of a soul experiencing punishment for his sins, experiencing damnation…

"You feel pity for him," Mey said softly.

It was not a question, but it also was. _I miss him._

"Why?" It was a gentle question, one with no implications.

 _I miss him from two thousand years ago. He was once just our big brother, our friend who learned with us and adventured with us… and then he suddenly became angry, rebellious, full of hatred… and he viciously attacked all of the humans, whom he had no reason to hate… I miss him, and yet I am also so angry with him…!_

"You wish to be free of his hatred."

"Yes." Xi grabbed Mey's wrists. "Stop, please. I can't burden you any more." She pulled on them, but they held fast. "Mey. I don't want all his memories to go to you too. They'll hurt you like they hurt me…"

"Stop it. Xi, I _want_ to know."

Xi opened her eyes. Mey was irritated, and Xi could feel it.

"For ten years, Xi, you've sat in the cave over Lake Acuity, brooding and ruminating like a sad hermit, and I've been worried absolutely _sick_ over you. Azi too. Giratina shouldn't have chosen _you_ to take all his memories from him; he should have chosen someone more experienced with severe emotions, and severe depression; he should not have wounded _you_ so badly, when your emotions are so much more tender, more soft…" Her hands had loosened from Xi's face. Mey grabbed her own arms and looked away. "I'm… I'm sorry."

The night was cold again, and cricketsong wafted around them. Xi shivered and stared at Mey, wondering why she had spent so much time away from her sisters… from her family. "I'm sorry too."

A haphazard tear revealed itself in the corner of Mey's eye. She sighed and wiped at it. "Well, I guess I just missed you. I like taking care of my sisters… I can't do it for humans very easily, for the risk of revealing that I'm a psychic, but I like trying to heal someone's distress when I can..."

"You're good at it, Mey," she assured her, putting a hand on her knee. "And I'm sorry. I'm glad I came to visit you. It's just… well… the…"

"They're violent," Mey said, nodding. "All of his experiences are violent. He helped humans fight wars when he was very young; he dedicated his life to training in magical fighting; he earned his banishment by trying to exterminate the human race…" She shivered slightly and held out her hands. "When he was freed from his banishment, ten years ago… I know why he wanted to forget those memories, to give them all away. He wanted to wipe his mind clean, to start an entirely new life…"

"He didn't want the shame and self-hatred any more."

Mey nodded. "I'm glad that he's happy… or, at least, happier than he was before. I would just like to help relieve _you_ of your misery, Xi."

Xi took Mey's hands. "Thank you."

Mey sighed. "Now, close your eyes. Let me in, so I can calm your racing heart."

"With pleasure…"


	3. Shadow Ball

_shadow ball -_

 _1971; Sinnoh, Japan_

Being a police officer was one of the strangest careers a pyschic could ever pursue.

It became amusingly clear to Ao Zhi when, under the light of a cruel ceiling-lamp, Timothy Lyle Keaton sat staring with that steely smirk of his, believing that he wouldn't crack. Of course, they all believed that.

Azi clasped her hands. "Tim, how are you feeling?" It was a question she loved to ask, because the real question inside it was _: 'Are you willing to tell me what I already know?'_

He was tired of being chased. He'd been caught once before, but made the previous officer to believe he didn't _realize_ his type of battling – without a trainer's license present, and against a _minor_ – was illegal. They'd eased the punishment on him – just one year in prison – essentially a slap on the wrist. "Fine. How are you?"

The air was cold and musty. The little room hadn't been cleaned in six years; then again, it wasn't used for anything other than interrogations, so the only thing unclean about it was _dust._ Azi hated dust. She was a legendary, immortal being, but she somehow managed to suffer from frequent sinus difficulties…

"I'm very well. Disappointed to see that you haven't learned a lot since…" She glanced at the file. "1969. Only two years ago. Aren't you a little weary of breaking the law, Mr. Keaton?"

"Can't say that I am, seeing that nothing that transpired was illegal, ma'am." His voice was nasaly, and she could detect a faint Australian accent.

"Tim, I _know_ your memory is sharper than that." She stood up, yanked out the picture of a bleeding-out garchomp, and slapped it between his handcuffed wrists. "At 7:54 p.m. last night, in the outskirts of Sunyshore City, you pulled a machete on this creature, wounded it mortally, and left it bleeding without alerting any nurses or rangers. _Both_ of which are capital offenses."

Timothy's temper flared within him. "It tried to _eat_ me, sweetheart. Don't you think _you'd_ want to stay alive, too, miss… Amanda?"

Azi sniffed. "My name is _Officer Jackson,_ and you will refer to me as such. Perhaps you'll remember Sinnoh's Law of Preservation, which reads: If any citizen finds any wild animal in critical condition, they are to immediately notify a Pokemon Center or Pokemon Ranger. If he or she neglects to observe this law, they shall be temporarily relieved of the pokemon in their possession, and serve two months in prison."

"That's an _ancient_ law!" he spat, struggling to keep his facial expression even. "No one's been thrown in prison in _decades_ for a thing like that. There's five hundred wounded pidgeys in every _forest_ ; do you expect me to count every blasted branch and check if all the feathers are intact – "

"Do you see me laughing?" Azi growled. "You had a perfect knowledge of your act of self-preservation, which I'm willing to condone in light of your mortal danger, but you _walked away._ A member of a critically endangered draconic species is _dead,_ thanks to you."

"Between you and me, Amanda, they should die off sooner rather than later. Those land-dragons cause more problems than they solve. I spend more money on fixing my roof every week than on _groceries_ because those things are so uncontrollable – "

" _Shut up_." Azi was shaking. An odd headache came over her and she found herself losing balance slightly. Leaning on the table and bracing her knees slightly, she looked inside Timothy's mind even deeper. "Our goal today, Timothy, is to help you find where your pokemon are stored. You told us about your several water- and fire-types stored within Bebe's Pokeball Storage System… but you certainly have more stored elsewhere. We'd like to take custody of them as soon as possible…"

The headache was growing worse. She slowly sat down, keeping her eyes locked on his, but finding difficulty in it. Is wasn't anger doing this to her. Was there some other presence in the room…?

"I'm a purist, Ms. Jackson. I like to focus on only a few types. It helps hone my strategy."

"No, I'm afraid that's incorrect." She looked into his mind. He had a mankey somewhere, a roserade, and many more… located in a warehouse somewhere in – _Augh!_ Her eyes closed. "And you've brought one of them with you."

Timothy tensed. "What?"

The pain spiked and she grabbed her temples, holding with all of her might onto her instincts, trying not to send a blast of psychic energy right at the invisible poison-ghost floating in the top corner of the room. "Officer Tanaka, there is a hostile gastly in the room. It's invisible, but it's hiding behind the camera in the corner by the door. Please tranquilize it, and add to Mr. Keaton's record that he attacked a police officer during interrogation."

"Right away, Officer Jackson," came a voice from her radio-watch.

Timothy held out his hands. "No! You don't think that was _mine_ , do you?"

The gastly was enjoying the one-sided battle. Its attacks were getting even stronger; to the point where she was seeing spots of black in her vision. Ghosts hated psychics more than anything else, and it seemed to know she was one. _Officer Tanaka, come quickly!_ "Tell it to stop, Timothy," she seethed, gritting her teeth.

"I can't, it's not mine…" He was lying, and he knew he was about to spend twenty years in prison. He hadn't anticipated that she'd be able to tell it was a gastly, let alone where it was. "I- I can't!"

The attacks became confused. The headache eased and then spiked again, irregularly. The gastly didn't know what to do…

"Wait one minute, Officer Tanaka. _Timothy_." She forced herself to stand straight, her arms shaking as she leaned over to him and glared into his wide blue eyes. "Command it to stop. _Now._ If you refuse this order, we will permanently release it to the wild. If you comply, it will be allowed to return to you after you serve your time."

Fury welled within Timothy. He wanted to become a powerful ghost trainer, and he nearly wept at the thought of letting it out of his possession...

Then, like a light-switch, another motive alighted in Timothy. "Now, Phantom," said the criminal.

Pain slammed into Azi's mind like a wall of iron. She felt her entire body lose its strength at once, and she was unable to keep her eyes open…

 _Of all things, why did it have to be a ghost…_

…

.

.

 _Ao Zhi._

 _._

 _…_

 _Ao Zhi, I've always wanted a sister. Do you want to be sisters?_

 _…_

 _She opened her eyes and looked at the pink elf in front of her. She had big, childish eyes… and a very big, very childish brain. "Your name is Ao Zhi, right? I'm Mey She. We're just like each other. I mean, we're both psychics, and we're both alone…"_

 _Ao Zhi blinked. "Yeah…"_

 _"And-and, I always see how humans of the same kind always stick together in a family… so… do you… want to be… well, a family?"_

 _She had never heard any creature speak to her so kindly before… and she'd never met such a strange, warm-spirited psychic before. She knew right away that this one had a good heart, and she needed a safe place to go, after all…_

 _It surprised her, but, unlike anything else she'd ever experienced, this felt right._

 _"Okay, Mey. But… just call me Azi."_

 _"Okay, Azi! Let's protect each other from now on…"_

 _…_

 _._

Azi woke up.

She was on the old navy-blue couch in her office, and a damp towel had been placed over her forehead. By now it was cold, and the lights were off, save for a bit of hall-light filtering through her slightly-open door.

Her joints complained slightly as she rose up, but the ghost-induced headache was gone, thank _goodness._ Her watch read 9:58 P.M., two minutes before closing. _Good grief, I was out for four hours…_

Two quiet knocks sounded on the door. She took in a few deep breaths to clear the rest of the sleepiness from her head and murmured, "Come in."

Ryo Tanaka opened the door. "Good, you're well again. The nurse told us you'd be recovering about now…"

Azi nodded. "I apologize for passing out like that, Officer Tanaka." She stood up slowly. "Any word about Mr. Keaton?"

"Missing." Ryo leaned against the door frame, shaking his head. "That ghost of his fried all of our electricity and covered the building in darkness for sixty minutes. No sign of him for a twenty-kilometer radius. We'll have to put up wanted posters again."

"We might want to contact our special forces, Ryo," she said, staring into her partner's young eyes. "With an ambush like that, who knows what else he has up his sleeve..."

"They told me they're saving the "ghostbusters" for first-rank crimes… as in, murder." He flipped on the lamp on her desk and approached the couch.

"Officer Tanaka, he _did_ murder someone!"

"…A dragon."

Azi sighed and folded her arms. "I know, but…"

"I know you love pokemon," Ryo said gently. Azi looked away, embarrassed. Being half-pokemon herself, she had to remember that not everyone had the same viewpoint she did. "But this was an important learning experience, Amanda. Pokemon are getting better at avoiding our surveillance systems. We're looking at drastically improving our in-house cameras and motion sensors."

"Good, I hope so." She looked toward the window. "Anything I can do to help the search?"

"Go home and rest, Amanda," replied Ryo. "Chief says he'll see you next Monday."

Surprised, she turned to Ryo. "Nothing for me this weekend?"

"Nothing." He smiled and held up his keys. "I'll walk you to the exit?"

"…Sure."


	4. Behind the Mirror

_behind the mirror -_

 _The dragon Giratina was always fascinated by mirrors._

 _"They tell us more about reality then we dare to admit," he told me once. I believe that he was right, in more ways than he is aware._

 _The creature was born thousands of years ago; he only has an estimate of the time and place. It was deep in the heart of the Indian jungle, near a mountain that was famous for the furious gold of the setting sun that it reflected. He loved the sight of it so much that, in his human years when he learned the ancient Indian words "giri thana" – "mountain of gold" – he wanted the name for himself._

 _He wanted to reflect light, like the mountain did._

Mey could not help but listen in. She had seated herself carefully in the corner of the kitchen, as far as she could so as to avoid disturbing her sister, busy at work writing at the breakfast table… but still within earshot, of course. Or, rather… mindshot.

"It's so stiffly written," said Xi, lifting her head. The morning light filtered through the window curtain and dappled across her dyed-blonde hair. "I'd like to revise it. I just don't know how, when it's made of _his_ mind, not mine."

"Don't, don't," advised Mey. "Just write."

Xi eyed her sister briefly and huffed. "Right, then." _After all my training in writing scholarly essays, I've nearly forgotten how to write something meant for private contemplation…_ She took her pencil again in hand. _Well then._

 _Most of his early life was spent doing what everything else does. He hunted for his food, found shelters in caves and tree hollows, and protected his territory by the strength of his claws and teeth, and by the few dragon-magic spells he had managed to teach himself._

 _Humans were not plentiful five thousand years ago. It was the birth of the Indus Valley civilizations – easily the first humans to build a community there – and he had but little competition for food, for land. His competition, primarily, were the other dragons, the monkeys, the snakes, the giant insects, the arcanines -_

"I've all but forgotten how savage the world was just a few millennia ago," Xi half-chuckled to herself.

Mey exhaled. "I don't miss it."

"What on earth am I going to _title_ this?" Xi realized. She stood up abruptly and leaned one hand on the wooden chair. "The Story of Giratina? The Tale of the Renegade? Those were in my head before, but they're awfully generic. Don't you think it ought to be something meaningful to him?" She started to pace. "Something witty, something profound!"

Mey smirked. "Only you and I are going to read this little biography for now; it doesn't even _need_ a title."

Then she heard the thought that Xi had been attempting to hide: _But I want humans to read it._

A swellow squawked outside the window and flapped away, as if knowing that two immortal psychics were having a weighty discussion. "When you want the humans to read it, you'll need Arceus's permission." She left it at that.

Xi just looked down at her. _What could possibly make him give me that kind of permission?_

 _It's not up to me to decide or foretell that. The Alpha is the only one whose mind we can't read. So… don't think about it. Just write._

After a few seconds of thinking, Xi nodded. _Very well._ Then she went to the table, but didn't sit down. Something was turning in her mind.

Mey shifted slightly to a more comfortable sitting position. "But Xi-xi, when did he learn that he was a different kind of dragon, with interdimensional capabilities and unique genetic makeup? When did he look at his reflection and become self-aware? That's what I'm curious about."

" _Behind the Mirror_!" Xi cried, grinning oddly. "It's brilliant. Thank you."

Mey's eyes widened as her sister bounced back into the old wooden chair and crouched over her paper. "He'd approve of that title, I believe," mumbled Xi to herself.

"…Wow," was all Mey managed to say, and she was unable to keep herself from smiling. While Xi continued, Mey got up and went to her carefully-organized pantry, attempting to keep her thoughts on menial tasks so as not to distract the author.

 _It was an old, long-lost world; it existed loudly and quietly all at once. Life was about survival, and little else. He was content, if you could call it that. It didn't occur to him that he was the only one of his kind – unlike any creature that had ever existed – until perhaps his sixtieth year of life._

Humming vaguely to herself, Mey found a bag of jasmine rice and crouched down to look through her spice collection. It was so interesting to see into Gira's past life. Until Xi had come to visit, Mey had only been able to read his present musings; she'd never been allowed into very many of his ancient memories.

 _He had seen families of like creatures travel and fight together. In his experience, families were dangerous; a liability. Living alone was much safer. You could escape quickly, without a thought for who you were responsible for. You didn't have to ration food; you didn't have to come back for stragglers; you didn't have to raise children…_

"I wonder what he's doing nowadays," Mey commented.

Xi looked up. "I'm sorry?"

Mey pulled her head out of the pantry. "What's he up to today? Where is he even _living_?"

"I didn't ask what his plans were before I wiped his mind ten years ago. But he's living the life of a normal human somewhere, without even a particular knowledge of who 'Giratina' is. Arceus had asked that I try to leave him to his own devices; the mere sight of me might bring back too many memories…"

"I suppose that's understandable," Mey replied. She began measuring out rice, trying to remember what Giratina's human face even looked like. It had, after all, been at least a thousand years since she last saw him… before he'd been banished.

"He'd looked a lot different, when he came to me," Uxie said quietly. She brought up the image of him in her mind, so Mey could see it.

He approached her like a dead spirit approaching God. Slowly, deliberately. His body was almost bone; banishment had afforded him little in the way of eating. He had attempted to smooth down his black hair and arrange it in somewhat of an orderly fashion, but it was still unbalanced. Aside from all that, there was starlight in his eyes and purpose in his step.

 _"Honored Lady Yuu Xi. I am in need of a new life."_

* * *

The night was always said to be dangerous, yes; but for some, it was merely a pocket of a different kind of safety.

Wind whipped through oak trees, not stopping to consider the tiny glowing eyes and lurking heartbeats of hidden pokemon below. Danger could be possible, but if one had enough strength, they needed not fear.

She zoomed between tree trunks, letting the air she disturbed kick dead leaves into the air, like a trail of pixie dust. She was a small elfish thing, merely the size of a child, with skin the color of morning sky and golden searchlights for eyes. Two thin tails trailed behind her, flapping in the wind like ribbons.

Ao Zhi had needed to take a flight for a long time.

 _Look, it's Azelf._ Here and there she caught thought-snippets of any night-dwellers that caught her eye. _What's she doing here?_

By now she'd gotten used to humans referring to the mythological name they'd made up for her true form, but it was off-putting to hear a _pokemon_ call her that. Her family knew her as Azi, but after centuries of trainers and professors, the portmanteau "Azelf" had been scientifically accepted as the truth.

While a bit disappointing, it was inevitable. She kept secrets from every human around her; naturally, she would need to keep secrets from other pokemon too…

 _Winter's upon me,_ thought a munchlax from its den. _Time to fatten up._

She slowed her pace as she approached Lake Valor. It wasn't visible yet, but the trees were thinning, and the smell – and thoughts – of lake-fishes were beginning to saturate the air. Above, stars were struggling to pierce through the light pollution from the city Pastoria not a few kilometers off. _Stars haven't had much to do with our lives in a long time,_ she thought offhandedly as she lowered herself behind a razzberry bush.

 _Now, are there any ghosts nearby..._

There was one. No, two. A haunter and a lampent, floating lazily above the moonlit water like will-o-wisps.

 _Wow,_ Azi though to herself, hiding behind a thick trunk to observe them. _You can run into haunters anywhere, but it's quite a stretch to see a lampent in Japan…_

"Too many humans in the world these days," said the haunter as it scanned the water for fish with its angled eyes. "I don't like it."

"They aren't so bad," said the lampent. Its flame flickered gently in the night breeze. "Just unintelligent, is all."

Azi nearly laughed, despite herself. She concentrated, trying to search their minds for any knowledge of "Phantom" and its runaway trainer, Timothy. As hard as she tried to come in, though, their minds were stubbornly walled off, apart from their general disdain for human beings and their desire for a reliable source of food and water for the winter.

"Unintelligent. Heh. And naïve."

Ghosts' minds were aggravatingly difficult to read, as they seemed to half-exist in some other world that even legendary psychics weren't familiar with. Over the centuries, she'd gotten somewhat adept at navigating their thoughts… but just like their bodies, ghostly minds changed form so quickly that a mere gust of wind could throw off Azi's concentration instantly…

"Wait. Someone's here."

Azi froze. Did they sense her? She pushed the wall harder, but she still couldn't get into their minds far enough to tell. _If I run, they might see me. If I stay, they might attack me…_

"Daddy, daddy, it's a lamp-light!" shouted a little boy. The sound of splashing water echoed around the trees, and Azi felt the ghosts stiffen up. "Catch it, catch it!"

An exhausted father trudged towards the lake and pulled out his bag. "I only brought enough balls to catch a couple fishes, Donny. They're good for water-types, not fire-types."

"It's getting away!" The boy jumped up and down. "Just try!"

Azi poked one eye out from behind her tree. The lampent and haunter had gone to the other side of the lake, grinning tauntingly at the boy.

 _Naïve, indeed,_ thought the lampent. _And unpredictable!_

"Ssh, ssh," whispered the father, kneeling down. "If you're quiet enough, they'll stay there and we can keep watching them. Also, the light from that floating lampent attracts fish to the surface."

"Oh, oh," said the boy, sitting down quickly. "Okay."

Azi smiled slightly. It was nice to see humans enjoying nature. She couldn't imagine anyone wanting to go fishing at _this_ late an hour, but if there were certain kinds of rare fish you wanted to find, night-time was the only time to get them…

 _Now, to find some other ghosts that are easier to read._

She turned from her tree, preparing to take flight again, only to be greeted with a blue-hot flame and two glowing eyes.

"Ah!" exclaimed Azi, backing against the tree and summoning a wall of energy to shield herself. "Get back. If you attack me, you will regret it."

But the lampent didn't move, or even seem to flinch. "I'm not inclined to attack a Legendary."

Azi raised her eyebrows. She studied the lampent. It seemed a bit older. Its iron-framed body was worn down and smoothed from years of wear, and the glow of its eyes had dimmed slightly from age. _A ghost that possesses the body of a lantern,_ thought Azi to herself. _It's one of the most peculiar things I've ever seen._

"How may I help you?" Azi asked, neutralizing her facial expression.

The haunter approached them from behind the lampent and smiled. The lampent asked, "You're Uxie, aren't you? You're the one who banished Giratina? The one who commands psychics and rules over them?"

"That's not what - " but Azi stopped. What did they want with Xi? She narrowed her eyes. "Why do you ask?" She moved sideways away from the tree, giving herself more space to move.

The haunter pushed past the lampent. His thoughts were strange and laced with a deep sort of anger. "It's all right, you can tell us. We're not going to hurt you. We'd just like to know why you banished him."

"And where he was banished _to,_ " added the lampent quietly.

His eyes bored into hers. Azi focused on not betraying any emotion in her face. _He has heard the legends of Giratina. He bears some desire to know him more deeply, seeing that Gira is the only known ghost who has ever attained Legendary status..._

"I'm afraid I don't have the answer," she lied, "as it wasn't me who ordered his banishment." She stepped forward. "You'll have to ask the Alpha." She bowed her head and turned around to leave.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" the haunter crooned as he swept in front of her. "Where might we find him?" The haunter's question was rhetorical. He merely wanted to prevent her from leaving. He was trying to get under her skin, to get her to snap…

"He only speaks to those with whom he _wishes_ to speak," said Azi, bowing again. She summoned all her wind-energy and then shot upwards with full speed, curving her flight path so she swept just above the canopy of trees. _I wish I were Xi,_ she mused. _Then I'd actually possess the ability to take away their memories of me…_

Good, it seemed that they weren't following her. But it seemed she'd need to be more careful when ghost-tracking in the future. They recognized a legendary elf-psychic more readily than she thought they would.

 _Xi-xi, Mey… if only you two were back here in Japan,_ she thought, wishing that the glittering stars above her could send her message to her sisters. _In times like these, we need to be able to counsel with each other frequently. Especially now that Giratina has been back from his banishment for ten years. Even though Arceus trusts him to behave himself in his newfound state of amnesia and obliviousness... I still don't feel that the world is free of his influence. The ghosts are becoming more and more curious about his whereabouts for some reason..._

She sighed. _Even Kia and Dialga could be implicated; even Arceus and his wife. I've got to be more alert. I've got to protect my family._


	5. Winter

_winter -  
_

 _Giratina thought himself above others._

 _Never did he imagine that he'd become royalty, or master an entire dimension, or acquire a human transformation, or rebel from the Alpha and become an infamous devil in both gossip and lore. No – in his relative infancy, in his first century of existence, he simply knew that he was Different._

 _There was no one like him. No other dragons with golden crests adorning their heads, no other creatures with powerful red-tipped wings that never tired. He was the only one of his kind, and he realized it at the end of his childhood. He would never find another dragon like himself, not if he searched to the northernmost reaches of the jungle or the southernmost tip of India's triangle, just before it fell into ocean._

 _At first, it was terrifying._

 _Then, it was empowering. There was no one to answer to. No one to command him or lead him. The authority and government of his own life rested slowly on his shoulders._

 _Thus, he asked, what would he command himself to pursue? It never occurred to him to divine why he was the only one of his kind – only to decide what would be most worthwhile of him to accomplish._

 _He explored. He watched the giant snakes and learned from their hunting techniques, their intriguing dark-magic. He watched the arcanines and their hypnotizing fire-magic, the walking plants and their poison spells. He managed to emulate some of the techniques he witnessed – he could conjure up a flame or two, perhaps a drop or two of poison – but a large portion of magic seemed determined to elude him._

 _Until he met Arceus._

"Xi-xi…" came a mumble from the other side of the room. "Could you… turn off the light?"

She jumped slightly. Mey's ivory forehead peeked out from under an old patchwork quilt.

"Oh. Sorry, Mey. I didn't even know you'd gone to bed."

"I did… half an hour ago. I told you I was going to, but… I think you may not have heard me…"

"Oh…" Yuu Xi's mind reeled. Did she even have a memory of that? She must have been so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice… "Sorry, sorry. Um…" Her hands hovered nervously over the thick notebook. "Right. What time is it?"

"Eleven. You've been writing for three hours." Her sister's voice was flat, gravelly.

"Oh. Oh." Xi flipped off the office lamp, feeling a tiny burst of warmth heat her fingertips. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was that long." Paper rustled softly as she organized some loose sheets back into the notebook.

"It's okay…" Mey yawned delicately. "I love you..."

She paused. "I… love you too."

Mey's voice had faded. "Mmm," she hummed. "Night."

Stillness.

Uxie's mind was so loud, so full of scenes and colors and words, and the flow had been dammed suddenly, like a river blocked.

She sighed. It _was_ late. She should be getting to bed.

As she pulled on her nightwear, she remembered her master's words, ten years ago. _"When he comes to be wiped clean, Yuu Xi, you must implant in him fake memories. Make him yearn for a simple life. One of peace and quiet."_

It was a life _she_ used to want.

She used to envy Gira so much it hurt. The burden he had placed into her mind, ten years ago, burned her; it weakened her spirit and her body so much, and she had simply wanted to be _human._ Without immortality. Without two eternities of memories and pains and battles wafting about her brain, distracting her, eating at her. She'd wanted peace, quiet. Order.

But for some reason, on this night, in a quiet countryside cottage with nothing but the sound of crickets and her sister already snoring away, she seemed to care less about a life of simplicity. Something new had taken a place in her heart. Perhaps… it was the act of creating.

She smiled to herself and crawled under her fluffy quilt. _I'll never be able to fall asleep,_ she mused, even though her eyelids did seem a bit heavier than they were ten minutes ago. _I'll never be able to sleep. Not with all these ideas in my mind. Not when Giratina's life is so vibrantly present before my eyes, like a movie, playing over and over and over again…_

She yawned. _Over and over, like a book I'll never stop writing, like a book that never ends…_

 _…_

* * *

When Azi woke up on Sunday morning, it was winter.

The sun had already scaled the low mountains, and the trees were alive with infant snow; bursting with it. The small window radiated a forbidding sort of cold, but she pushed the curtain away to get a better look at the winter world. _Ah!_

White light reflected everywhere. The biting chill at the tip of her nose, that strange adrenaline that woke her senses, delighted her. It gave her the energy she knew that she'd need today. She threw on a sweater and went to breakfast.

 _I have two mysteries to solve,_ she decided, rummaging around the shelf for a bit of oatmeal. Her one-bedroom apartment was humble, but it was all she needed. The walls were soundproof - and, quite pleasantly, thought-proof. _I'll solve the mystery of two missing ghosts. The outlaw Phantom needs to be found, to be sure… and more importantly, I need to know why Giratina's whereabouts are kept so secret by Arceus._

She poured water into a pot and, yawning, slid it onto her stove. _I'm tired of wondering and worrying, only to be told by Arceus that it's none of my concern. It IS my concern! I'm part of the ancient Red Chain just as much as Giratina is; I'm part of his "family," whether my master likes it or not._

Sighing while the heat built up, she took another look out the kitchen window. "Why, I'm the only police officer of the Legendaries!" she exclaimed aloud, pouting at the trees. _If there's anyone who should know who is where, at all times, especially when there could be danger involved, it's me!_

There was a knock at the door. Exhaling, she investigated her sweatpants. They were too loose and terribly unprofessional. She pressed her forehead to the door to search for her visitor's thoughts, as there was no peephole.

News delivery. The boy was already running off to his next house. Azi was usually so prompt in waking up and getting out the door, she usually beat him to it, but today she'd slept in slightly…

She cracked the door open, sucking in her breath at the rush of pleasant cold, and grabbed the wrapped-up _Sinnoh Daily._ "What have they told the world about the Sunnyshore police station this morning…"

Ah, joy; it was on the front page. "GHOST INVASION!", the headline proclaimed; a tiny ghastly had infiltrated the security system, set the electricity haywire, and knocked four helpless officers unconscious. Their biggest disaster in five years, it read…

"Ugh!" She grabbed a spoon and stirred the oatmeal in. _I won't think about it today. Today will be a family day._ She smirked and found some cinnamon powder. _Today… I'll make a bit of an evening visit._

What she'd said to the Haunter _was_ true, she had to admit to herself. Arceus valued routine, and didn't tend to smile when anyone barged in uninvited. Even a Legendary.

But… in the ancient days, she was one of his closest advisors. His right-hand woman, in fact. And it had been so long since she'd spoken to him… years, even. She could only count her visits to him on one hand since the Renegade's banishment.. _._ back when Giratina was stripped of his mind and sent to live somewhere, supposedly in Europe – somewhere discreet, somewhere rural… somewhere that Arceus could take him wholly off his mind and let him live in peace.

"Hmm," she muttered as she poured the finished mixture into a wooden bowl. _Where did I put my phone book?_ She smiled oddly. Legendaries pretended to be a tight-knit group, but sometimes, busy human affairs could get in the way. At times, it made them neglect each other… even to forget that they _weren't_ truly human. And the only real link she had left to her ancient family was an old, wrinkling notebook with home phone numbers.

 _We mustn't lose each other,_ she mused as she sat down to say a brief prayer over her breakfast. _Someday we'll all gather together. Maybe, Heaven willing, we'll have a… family reunion of sorts._

Breakfast alone was quiet and somewhat pleasant. Like her other two sisters, she didn't have the luxury of being truly alone: the thoughts of neighbors and passersby were always loud and clear, like a constant conversation that they didn't know existed. However, it was still possible to be lonely… even if she wasn't alone.

Between bites, she spotted her little orange notebook hiding between two cookbooks. _Excellent._ She collected it and opened to the first page.

"Hmm," she wondered aloud. "Why isn't it in the A's?" _Oh, right. I'd hidden his number in the middle. So no one who found it would suspect anything…_ She smirked to herself and flipped through the book. _Not that they would, anyway. I even renamed his entry "Archie." The nickname he despises._ _The poor man…_

She shoved the last mouthful in and fingered over his number, reciting it to herself until she'd memorized it. Swallowing the last bits of oatmeal, she made her way to the phone.

Her fingers froze on the black surface of the receiver.

What if… what if she shouldn't? He would be offended. Surely he'd want to _invite_ her, if he had wanted to discuss matters of Legendary importance. Perhaps she should invite him and his wife over instead. That would be far more courteous.

She surveyed her apartment. Hm. One card table, one folding chair, and enough ramen to last her through the next week.

 _…Better not risk it._

With a sigh, she dialed the number. _Realistically, what's the worst that could happen by inviting myself over?_ It began to ring.

 _It's not the ancient times anymore, after all. This is the twentieth century. I can invite myself to the Alpha's residence anytime I want…_

She heard the _click_ of a person picking up the phone. The small voice of Arceus's wife crackled through to her ears: "Hello; this is Naka."

* * *

A dragon, as slow as night, lumbered into view behind whirling winds of snow.

The man shivered, despite himself. A great, ancient mass of gray-blue scales and blood-red wings towered above the blizzard as if it owned the snow. If he, the skinny, wrinkled man standing motionlessly amid the snow, were a _normal_ human being, he could surely die.

The old man sighed. Dragons were as foolish as they were powerful. A blizzard could kill a winged lizard swifter than any poison, any sword. They were weaker to cold than any creature alive - and too proud to acknowledge it.

"Dragon," he stated. "Follow me."

The dragon, a fully-grown salamence, reared its head slowly and closed its eyes. Perhaps, contemplating whether to brave the cold any longer.

The man closed his eyes too, clutching the small plate of hardened clay between his hands.

The plate, likely, was the only thing keeping him alive at this moment. The blizzard, brilliant and ruthless, whipped at him from every angle and threatened to freeze his very bloodstream. But from the plate came _heat_ , brilliant heat. Just as endless and just as persistent.

"Dragon," he repeated quietly, and the wind stole the sound. "Follow me. I am your Alpha." He _could_ transform to catch the creature's attention. But that would risk catching _other_ attention, something he'd been avoiding for five thousand years…

The dragon screeched suddenly, realizing that the cold was killing his wingtips. The pain would spread through his wings, seize its heart, freeze its lungs…

"Dragon!" Arceus cried, igniting within himself a fire and alighting it in a halo around his person. "Look at me!"

The beast's head whirled around. It bared its teeth, threatening death. _Be reasonable,_ thought the Alpha, frowning. _I am your only hope for survival, and you know it._

The beast lumbered forward, likely losing its balance from cold. How had it wandered this high above the world? At the summit of Mount Coronet, in the cold of winter, _nothing_ could survive. Even a Legendary had to concentrate to keep himself warm enough.

And yet, the dragon, as stubborn as its race had been since it began millennia ago, pressed on.

Arceus leapt backward as a claw came at him out of a wall of snow. Weakly, hesitantly. The dragon's fingers had likely become completely numb from the cold. He pressed his own fingers into the cold ground, searching for earth. It was far below the snow, but he caught whispers of rock. Faint ones.

It was enough. Taking a sharp breath, he wrenched his hand and body up in a straight line from the ground, bringing a wall of rock with it that flew above his head and caught heat from the fire-plate in his hand as it went. The pillar of fire-hot rock flew steadily through the blizzard, towards the wings of the great serpent. The wings began to thrash in pain, but Arceus kept his concentration on the tips. The rock wall spread, and molded itself to the great dragon's wings, still warm from the fire-magic, and became a thin glove. A coat of earth.

The great mass before him stopped suddenly. _Good. It feels the warmth._ He crouched back down again, searching for another mass of rock he could manipulate. _It does not recognize its Alpha, but that must be expected, as I am not in my true form…_ His hand shot from the ground again, alighting another wall of rock and sending it to the creature's toes.

The salamence moaned weakly. _Stay alive, my brother,_ thought Arceus, feeling a bit of fatigue in his lungs from breathing cold air for so long. He sent another pillar towards the fingers, then the neck; the tip of the tail. The parts of the body that would most quickly perish, were they to continue dropping in temperature…

The creature was losing life quickly. Its head and wings drooped, and the snow did not know of mercy. It whipped at them both with increased fury, corrupting Arceus's vision completely.

 _It's time,_ he thought, rubbing his eyes and reaching into his pocket to find the ice-plate. _Time to calm the storm._ Ice-magic was the last of the magic he'd learned in his self-training… but the pure nature of it had appealed to him, as soon as he had recognized it.

Ice was simply water that had forgotten how to be water.

 _"Obey me."_

His hands – one holding the fire-plate, one holding the ice-plate, flew into one another, and the snow burst into confusion. It became a series of frenetic circles and zigzags, briefly forgetting the wind that had commanded it. Arceus clutched the plates tightly, feeling the magic rip through his body against the pressure of the blizzard that yearned to be a blizzard again. _You will not be a blizzard,_ he commanded. _You will obey me. I am the Alpha. The protector of this world, and the commander of the elements._

The snow suddenly flew at him, recognizing the source of the ice-magic. He gathered it towards himself, heating it with waves of fire, gathering another flurry of snow, heating it again. Layer by layer, the blizzard ignored the dragon and focused entirely on the Alpha, only to be converted into a mere puddle…

"Go away!" he shouted at the dragon. "Escape while you can!" He gritted his teeth in concentration. The fire-magic was leaving his body to concentrate on the snow, and numbness was seizing his body almost as quickly as it had seized the dragon. "Go NOW!" he bellowed, able to project his voice now that the wind had abated somewhat. "I cannot maintain this for very long!"

And yet, the dragon did not seem to be wholly conscious. Its head glanced about sleepily and its body rose slowly, but its eyes were closing.

"Live!" Arceus screamed. "Live, I command you!" Cold seized at his legs, his eyes, his ears. If he continued to manipulate the blizzard for much longer, not only would humans take notice of the meteorological phenomenon, but he could very well lose his own consciousness…

…Of course, he would not _die,_ but fainting was certainly not outside a Legendary's grasp.

"Wake up," he croaked, as his lungs were losing the strength to cry out loudly. The snow was melting more slowly, as he had to delegate more and more fire-magic to keep his own blood heated. His knees began to give, and he settled to a kneeling position. "Wake up, you draconic _fool._ You've chosen your own death…"

The salamence's head turned to focus on Arceus. Its eyes blinked slowly, and it finally rose to all four legs and took a step towards him.

Indignation gave his voice strength again. "No, _away!_ Not to me! I am the blizzard! Go away from me; go!" _I should have transformed,_ he mused. _I am five hundred times as powerful in my true form; I could have abated the storm without a second thought and been on my way…_

But the dragon just peered at him, tilting its blue-crested head quizzically. It uttered a grunt, and its eyes widened. _It's waking up,_ Arceus thought, exhaling. _Thank heaven..._

Out of nowhere, a plume of fire came at him.

Before he could register it, heat was everywhere, and he quickly dropped the snow-manipulation so he could focus on keeping the fire from burning himself alive. But _aahh,_ how it relieved him of his near-frozen state.

When his vision cleared, the salamence was the size of his palm, in the sky, flying away, and the blizzard hovered just above the ground, beginning to brew once again.

Arceus blinked. The great beast, out of some semblance of compassion or perhaps gratitude, had fired a flamethrower and nearly set his Alpha on fire.

What a mercy it was.

He looked about himself. The snow was twisting and turning, rising, whispering. It was almost up to his neck again.

 _Perhaps... I will go home._


	6. Alpha

_alpha -_

A tiny blue glow hinted at snow behind the curtained windows, but the room was warm with fire, centuries-old upholstery and ginger-spice tea. Azi inhaled the scent and realized how much she missed Arceus's home.

"Really, you must not walk so far in the snow," said Naka, frowning over her onions as she chopped them. "It is bad for you. Even immortals can catch cold." She offhandedly blew a moon-colored strand of hair from between her eyes. " _He_ does, once or twice a year. The poor man."

Azi smiled. Naka had a way of fussing over the health of Legendaries just as if they were humans, fragile and old, like she was.

Then again… they were, to some degree, breakable. And certainly old.

She smiled as the plump, wrinkled woman approached her with a small square plate topped with senbei. "Thank you, Naka. You're so good to us."

"Hmm," replied Naka as she hurried back to the kitchen. Azi took a rice cracker from the flower-decorated plate, rolling her eyes. Naka was never one to accept compliments. Not even from her own husband.

"He should be home soon," muttered the woman as she adjusted her loose white hair back into its low bun. "I always tell him to arrive on time for his guests, but time seems to be a… different kind of concept for him." A faint smile etched itself into the corners of her mouth.

"He _is_ ten thousand years old," Azi pointed out, reaching for another cracker. The fire popped and crackled from the corner of the room, and she shivered.

"There's a pile of quilts next to the fire," instructed Naka, not lifting her head from the onions as she rhythmically reduced them to small slivers, _tak-tak-tak-tak._ "Go, take any of them."

Obediently, Azi rose from the couch. She found a thick one, woven with an elegant pattern of moonrays and clouds. It looked old and worn as the moon itself.

There was a companionable silence, then, and as Azi sipped her tea under the quilt, she felt vaguely like a child again. Why had she worried so much about coming here? Naka seemed to be craving company, so perhaps Arceus would be welcoming as well…

"Naka, perhaps I could… ask you a question?"

"I'll do my best to answer it, child."

 _Child?_ Azi shook her head in amusement. Her human form did perhaps look young, compared to Naka. "Have any… well, in your recent experience, have you encountered any ghosts? Have they… given anyone any trouble?"

"They come and go." She poured the chopped onions into a pot of udon. "They float around town every other night, or so. I don't try to bother them, and they don't bother me." A small silence, then Naka's tree-brown eyes met Azi's. "Have they given you trouble?"

 _No,_ Azi wanted to say, because Naka was so prone to worrying. But there was no point in lying when her reason for coming was to start a conversation. If there was any image of peculiar ghost behavior in Naka's memories, Azi wanted to find it...

"Well. I've run into a dangerous encounter here and there during the past couple of days, and it seems as if something has sparked their interest – "

"Come closer, Ao Zhi; my ears are failing me."

"Right." She sloughed off the quilt and went to the counter, trying to find a way to phrase it conversationally. "Well, a few ghosts have approached me with more hostility than… is usual. In the past, I had sensed vague anger or fear directed towards the Legendaries in general… but recently, there's been a bit of piqued attention towards Giratina. I… think the ghosts are starting to ask questions about him. And I… that's why I had wanted to speak with your husband. I worry that they might have… found something."

It had all come out so much more quickly than she'd planned it, and she winced when Naka set down her knife and clasped her fingers together. A wooden silence came over the woman, and Naka's thoughts swirled around the face of a man, all too familiar to Azi. "They're curious about Gira, are they."

The man in Naka's thoughts was furious. Tears streamed down his clay-colored face as he condemned the Alpha, cursed at him, as two dark-eyed ghosts dragged him into a seething, crackling wormhole – into his banishment. The memory wasn't originally Naka's, but her husband had told the story to her, many times in detail, and it was as if she'd lived through the Renegade's trial and punishment alongside all the host of the Legendaries, a millenium ago. Azi suddenly felt the need to put an arm on the woman's shoulder, but Naka was not the type to accept physical comfort readily.

"…Yes, Naka. Increasingly, over the past few weeks, I've… picked up an abnormal frequency of Giratina's image in their thoughts. Nothing particularly specific – their minds are so difficult to penetrate – but just a lot of curiosity, and… almost, suspicion."

"I think I may know why," said Naka quietly, finding a salt shaker. "I… can't explain it was well as Arceus can. You… were wise to come, when you did."

* * *

 _965 A.D._

"Step forward, Prince of the Horizon, and announce your decision."

Gira opened his eyes.

There, in the white air, as plain as if written, were the spoken words. The eight-story windows reflected them back to him, through their stained-glass figures of sun-flares, ocean crests, and mountainscapes. Their light, as it fell into the courtroom, was blinding.

He blinked and the sights shifted into place. Before him was Arceus, his "father." Straight-angled, robed in white and gold; the man looked at him with unbearable calm.

Gira had first met this creature millennia ago, and after thousands of years of only limited contact with this odd, fatherly spirit… here he was. In the flesh, staring back, with those gentle, oriental eyes of his. Here Arceus was, alive and well indeed… giving Gira the oddest choice ever given to a murderer at his trial.

 _Step forward, Prince of the Horizon._

Gira's ears restated the words for him, as if they sensed he had difficulty comprehending them. _Announce your decision to the Alpha and his witnesses, you coward. Say it and be done with it._

The room stood waiting to hear Gira's verdict, to hear what his own punishment for himself would be. Arceus already seemed to know his decision, although for the _life_ of him, Gira suddenly couldn't find it anywhere within himself…

Eighty-some souls sat behind him, staring at his grey-robed back. Five stood before him, protectively, near the Alpha. He knew these faces by heart, and did not dare stare into them; what little composure he now possessed would surely collapse. Did they _comprehend_ the possibilities that could become his reality in only a few minutes? Did they have any inkling that _he_ , the Prince of Horizon between Earth and Below, he who broke every law, who haunted the earth and destroyed its peace, he who attempted to kill his own _brother_ , who ended the existences of hundreds of innocent mortals…

… That he now stared at every minute of his life, and despised all of it …

 _Step forward, you fool, and tell them your choice._

His decision, of course, was death. Because it was either that, or one thousand years of banishment. Without contact with anyone, family or otherwise. Ten centuries of naught but swift descent into lunacy. _That_ hellish existence was his only option besides death. As soon as those options had been presented to him one week ago, he'd decided the better of them immediately, and had not dared waver.

 _You wish to die. Say it._ His voice escaped him. "Y-yes," he uncreatively replied.

The Alpha lost his composure for moment, and his thin hands twitched. He leaned forward, struggling to keep his mouth even. "Your _decision,_ my son?"

 _My son!_

Gira's blood was stale, his breath shallow. The Alpha felt towards all of the immortals as though they were his children, but of _all_ creatures, he would still use the word _son_ to describe Giratina? Of all the pathetic fiends between heaven and earth, he still deserved such a thing...

"Alpha, let me remain alive. Banish me."

* * *

Behind Naka and Azi, the door creaked open, and frigidity rushed into the room like a vengeful spirit. "I'm home," muttered an old voice.

"Close that door, Archie, or you'll give us both pneumonia," replied Naka. "I'm making your favorite udon soup."

"Both?" A tall, spindly man strode in, dressed in an oversized green coat, squinting through centuries of wrinkles. "Ah, Lady Ao Zhi? Of all the visitors?"

Arceus was a frightfully strong being despite his age, but he put on a frail image in his day-to-day human dealings. Azi's triplet sisters speculated that it was because he didn't want to be bothered by the younger crowd, and preferred a more relaxed pace to life, somewhat like an actual retirement…

Azi turned and bowed deeply, holding it for several seconds, and her short black hair curtained over her face. "Lord Alpha. Thank you for allowing me into your home."

"Ah, daughter, I haven't been called _that_ in ages," he grunted, smiling and slowly hanging up his coat. "Naka didn't tell me you were coming."

The clay-skinned woman came forward and shoved a bowl into her husband's papery hands. "She called me only last afternoon. Besides, you were too busy wrangling dragons. Azi, jasmine or chamomile?"

Azi blinked. "Wrangling… dragons?"

He scrunched his eyes, kneeling at the table. "Need we speak of that over dinner, my dear?"

Naka gestured to Azi to sit down, and she did so obediently, but not without taking her gaze off of her father. _"Dragons?"_ she pressed.

"He said there was a stray Salamance at the Spear Pillar peaks," Naka said cheerfully, "and he deigned to risk his life to save the thing. Rather than coming on time to dinner. Jasmine or chamomile, girl?"

"…Jasmine, please," Azi replied. "The Spear Pillar. Why on earth did it venture all the way up there?"

"The blizzard likely confused it as it was migrating south," Arceus explained, helping Naka pour the tea. "It… was not that much of a hassle. I merely redirected it. Thank you, Naka," he murmured as she served Azi's soup. "It's a work of art."

"Flattery does not forgive lateness," the woman insisted, but could not suppress a smile. "But thank you, dear. Let us humbly partake."

" _Itadakimasu,"_ Arceus agreed.

It was funny to Azi how familiar this all was, though she hadn't eaten dinner with this couple since they married fourteen years ago. Ancient beings tended to operate on a more stretched timeline; while humans often complained that a year was such a long time between family visits, to her family, it felt like merely an hour…

"You likely came for a specific purpose," commented Arceus after a bit of companionable silence. "What might that be?"

"Oh, I…" Azi paused. "I wanted to speak with you in private, about something."

"Ao Zhi is worried about some ghosts inquiring after Giratina's whereabouts," Naka announced. "They're pestering her about it, giving the poor girl quite a scare." She took in a mouthful of udon. _Just talk about it, girl. You don't need to keep secrets around me; I'm the Alpha's wife!_

Azi wanted to roll her eyes, but sighed. "Well, I'm not s _cared_ of them, just…" She glanced at Arceus. A sullen silence had suddenly washed over his face, darkening his features. "I know you don't want to speak of him, Alpha, but I… worry about him. What if he gets into trouble, and a ghost finds him and identifies him, and…" _and…_ _what?_ she thought. Speaks to him? Reawakens his _powers?_ How would that be possible? Perhaps she was worrying about nothing, and causing her father unnecessary grief…

Naka was silent. She looked between the two of them, realizing how hasty she had been. Giratina was not something Arceus often talked about, as the thought caused the man so much pain. It didn't take a psychic to know that.

"When Giratina was… himself... he was like a king to them," Arceus said slowly, thinking. "The ghosts, almost all of them that lived on the Earth, looked up to him. He was the only Legendary who could truly be classifed as a _ghost,_ and it gave them… courage _._ He used the ghosts as weapons against the humans, took advantage of their loyalty and admiration to him, and did… loathsome things with their power…" He shivered and stood up. "Please excuse me for a moment."

"I'm sorry…" said Azi as he left the room, visibly strained. She avoided eye contact with Naka, and finished her soup.

"Don't be sorry," Naka said quietly. "It needs to be discussed. He… " the woman's eyes flashed toward the direction Arceus had went, towards his room. _He has assigned himself Giratina's overseer, and allowed no one else to know where he is, or how he is doing. It is too much of a burden he has placed on himself. It is good that you are helping him see it._

Azi met the woman's eyes, realizing how right she was. "Thank you," she whispered.

Naka nodded briskly. She eyed the room again. _You should go speak with him privately. Without me. Like you came to do._ The woman smirked.

Azi bowed her head. "You are a good woman. Arceus is lucky to have married you."

The woman waved her hand, flustered. "Off with you, enough with the compliments."

* * *

The air froze. The walls, the ceiling, the floor became dead; the sunlight became useless and cold. His feet were nailed to the floor.

 _What did you just say?_

Arceus announced stiffly: "The Council of Earth and Sky has heard Lord Giratina's decision, and I will execute the sentence immediately."

 _No_. His legs weakened. _No._

But his master's smooth voice only rang emptily off of the towering ceiling.

The Alpha clasped his papery hands and bowed his head. "We hear your decision, and it shall be written." He nodded gently to Yuu Xi who sat with her small scroll; she was already putting it slowly, deliberately, into black ink; refusing to make eye contact with anyone.

The sunlight dulled to grey and the stained-glass lost its splendor. Kia, who was once so dear to him, swept forward like an angel robed in white. She nodded at him briefly before averting her eyes. She then bowed deeply towards the Alpha and slipped away into a concealed corridor.

 _I will not see her for ten centuries._ The thought numbed him.

Like ghosts, eighty-four patrons left the room. Yuu Xi and her two sisters bowed their heads and followed Kia out. Dialga, dressed in royal blue, silent and tight-eyed, left without even a glance. Gira hardly registered the low drumming of eighty pairs of feet exiting behind him; his _family_ had been standing around him, and suddenly, they were not.

"Let us waste no time."

Gira inhaled and met his overseer's eyes again. Arceus attempted to conceal it, but a tiny amount of relief softened the man's face. _The old fool doesn't want me to die,_ Gihra thought to himself, dipping his head numbly. _Why that is, I'll never know._

Arceus motioned towards the closed door in the back corner; it was shaded by a thick white curtain from the abundant sunlight, and it housed a room Gira thought he would never see, nor _need_ to see. His feet carried him towards the alteration chamber, and his mind frantically began to awake. _Coward, were you afraid to die? Exile is worse than death! You're a renegade now, an outcast! At least in death, your name will be remembered forever as the Prince of the Horizon, but in exile, in time you'll be nothing more than a lonely, mad-eyed folktale, and your name will be Renegade forever!_

"A-arceus," he spoke, unable to endure the silence.

The air was still, and Arceus did not turn to respond. He simply waved his hand into the air, causing the curtain behind them to close, and proceeded through the shadowy corridor.

"Speak to me, Arceus."

"You are banished. I am your overseer, and you must address me as such."

Hot fire surged through Gira, and he whipped forward. He stopped his father in his tracks, clutched the man's shoulder, and glared into those green eyes. "Yet, am I not your ' _son?_ ' What would you have me _do_ for one thousand years? Tell me what to do, how to stay _sane_ for ten centuries, Alpha!"

Arceus closed his eyes and angled his head away. "I do not know."

Gira hated the tears that threatened at his eyes. " _Help_ me!"

The walls here, unlike in the courtroom, offered no echo, and a statue-like silence permeated the air.

"You will… want to be miserable," said the Alpha, opening his eyes at last. "You will want to die. Azi had expressed to me that you wished to die, before you changed your mind today. I sense that you will _attempt_ to die." Arceus's throat stopped, and he cleared his throat, lowering his voice. "I tell you, as spirit to spirit, that you _must not succumb to suicide._ You must _not_."

"How, then?" hissed Gira, struggling to keep his desperation at bay. "Who are you to torture me? The Reverse World is no different from Hell, Arceus! If I choose to die, who are you to command me not to?"

The Alpha held out his palms. "I could not prevent it! But listen to me, Prince of the Horizon. You and I both know that life extended before our beginning, and it yet extends beyond the grave. We are appointed a time to live, and a time to die. It it is simply not our place to choose when it is." He wrung his hands together, as if struggling to find the right words. "You, Giratina, will _not_ benefit from crossing that border before the time is appointed you… You must live out your purpose. This punishment is meant to humble you, to help you, to transform you. Not to kill you."

Gira clenched and unclenched his fists, restless and furious with himself for changing his mind. "Why did _you_ give me the choice, then? I could have chosen death, against your wishes. What would you have done?"

The question hung in the air like ice. The Alpha looked the Renegade in the eye, but his eyes were kind. "I am your overseer… but I am not God," he replied simply, and proceeded through the corridor.

Gira followed those white-gold robes that whispered against the stone floor, letting the ugly tears manifest themselves while his father's back was to him.


	7. Chains

_chains –_

 _In his physical maturity, around 3000 BC, Giratina was a behemoth of a dragon: six powerful legs and enormous night-black wings that blocked out all sunlight; daggers for claws and ember-red eyes. He fancied himself king of the jungle – he'd mastered physical combat with tooth and claw, and boasted several rock-breaking and earth-shaking spells in his magical repertoire – but did not dare entertain any delusions of invincibility._

 _Thus, he took care not to overexert himself, certain that should he face too massive an enemy – an entire village of hunters armed with bows and arrows, or perhaps a lightningstorm catching him mid-flight – his strength could possibly fail him._

 _After a century or two of being alive, however, he learned that he was deathless._

 _One hot summer, fire caught hold on the golden mountain. The wind was at the perfect angle so as to spread flames all up and down the slopes, turning the mountain into a seething, flaming volcano of fire, and rudely awakening Giratina from his slumber with a falling ember upon his wingtip._

 _He fled as fast as he could, just as the humans and other jungle-creatures did; the wildfire was an ocean of heat, and whatever fed its hunger only made it more ravenous. He looked back and saw that most of the jungle, including several human villages, had been swallowed up in a matter of minutes. Animals and humans were screaming in terror, but he gave no thought to the death behind him. Smoke was filling his lungs, and flying became too strenuous, so he resorted to running._

 _As he landed, something white streaked past him, rushing at full speed towards the fire._

* * *

Arceus held the Griseous Orb up to the light of his desk lamp.

It was only the size of a child's fist, and winked brilliant gold as he turned the marquise-cut facets around under the lamp. Small flecks of copper and red peeked from inside the stone, like little embers caught in a fire.

Within this small gemstone swirled a transformation spell trapped between crystallized molecules, a masterful spell woven by Lady Miu herself – a type of magic that even Arceus could hardly comprehend, let alone emulate. The gem would only activate when held in Giratina's own hands, but now resided in the Alpha's possession for safekeeping.

Giratina _had_ repented, and for that he was grateful. Ten years ago, when Arceus ripped a hole in the fabric of space and reached inside, the hand that took his was worn and weary, but those deep brown eyes were bright and calm. With the touch of his hand, Arceus could almost feel through that leathery skin a millenium of prayers, sweat and struggles, and at last… peace. Over a thousand lonely years, Giratina had lost much of his touch with human language, but he had managed to speak these words:

 _Thank you, Alpha. I have repented._

After those simple words, he had simply bowed his head, then vanished. He'd never spoken to Arceus again.

 _Click._ Ao Zhi opening the door cautiously. Arceus sighed, setting down the orb. "He changed his heart, but he hasn't fully forgiven himself. He hardly even met my eyes when I released him from the Reverse World ten years ago... And the way he immediately went to Yuu Xi, it was as if… he…" He met the girl's eyes. "He wanted to hide from himself, from everything. He wished to disappear. Even if his repentance was full, he still felt… unworthy, somehow…" An agitated current of energy flowed through his fingertips.

Her eyes had widened slightly. "Sir, I…"

He brought his palms together, willing himself to be at peace. "Apologies, Ao Zhi. You have always been a protector… like me. It is only natural that you want to know of his current dealings."

She crossed the small room, passing Arceus's ceiling-high bookshelves packed with dust-blanketed tomes and relics. This girl was so small and young; though she held the posture and dignity of an old, wise woman, she was only a quarter of of his own age, and her skin and voice were soft. "I… wish that you would at least tell me where he is, sir. It is probably painful for you to constantly watch over him, and… I would like to help relieve that burden from you, Alpha."

He turned toward the orb and wrapped it again in its silk cloth, setting it inside a small wooden box. "I cannot, daughter. It is my calling to watch him, and mine alone."

He felt a small bit of heat flare within Ao Zhi. He knew she wished she could read his mind at times like these. "I know it is your calling. You keep it faithfully. I simply worry for his safety and our safety."

He cradled the wooden box in his hands, furrowing his brow. "No one can hurt us, and no one will bother hurting him. He is… living as a common farmer in the rural United States, living a slow, humble life. He is safe, and so are we."

He felt her hand clasp his arm, and he turned to meet her eyes, startled. "Alpha, with all due respect, we are not safe. Have you not heard of the criminal organizations that have been popping up within the last decade or so? Team Rocket, and Teams Galactic, Magma and Aqua, among others? There are people in this world that truly believe we exist, and they are looking for us, so they can capture our power. And now with this strange ghost behavior, I am sure that Giratina will be targeted, whether he knows it or not, and this makes him a liability. For _all_ of us."

Arceus had not been spoken to this way in many years, and he did not immediately know how to respond. Those firm, light-brown eyes did not break contact with his, so Arceus straightened his posture and faced her evenly. "My daughter, I am fully aware that there are corrupt, evil humans all around this earth, and that we must be careful. As long as he remains hidden from himself, unable to summon any magical spells or recognize any of us, we will have little need to worry."

Her brow furrowed and she wrung her hands in frustration. "So, he'll just be an amnesiac farmer for the rest of his life, and none of us can ever see him again? What about fifty years from now, when he realizes he's immortal? Surely that will attract attention from the world?"

"He will not be this way _forever,_ " Arceus replied in a low voice, narrowing his eyes. "Simply until the time is right."

"When will it be, Alpha? And why can't I help protect him? I'm also a link in the Red Chain, I am subject to the cosmic covenant, and as such, it's my duty to keep him out of trouble. Are you _hiding_ something about him that you don't want us to know?"

" _Ao Zhi_."

She was immediately silenced, eyes to the floor. "I am sorry, sir."

A cold stillness permeated the room.

"You have always been a protector," he repeated, slowly. "And… yes, that _is_ your calling. When we forged the Red Chain during your youth, and bound ourselves as a family, we vowed to protect one another. Ao Zhi, I ask you to protect us by watching the _humans._ You understand them better than I do, being a psychic."

She sighed. "You've… never been wrong before. If you believe that keeping us from interfering with his doings is best for him, then… I should trust you on that…"

He set the box on his desk. "I will tell you _why_ I feel this way, because you should know. I want him left alone because he… is happy. He is happier as a human than he has ever been, in all his years of existence. I think… his power made his mind sick. He needs this time to reset himself, to experience true peace. That is the least I can do for him."

The girl opened her mouth, then closed it.

"And Ao Zhi, though you are capable of keeping yourself hidden, were you to watch over him too, I… want to erase any possible risk of him discovering any of us. I am able to warp time and space, and conjure an image of him, so as to watch him from a safe distance. You are not."

"…Yes, Alpha. I understand." She nodded obediently, but there was still a darkness in her eyes.

"Do you miss him?"

The question caught her by surprise. She looked up, squinting slightly. "Well… I don't believe _miss_ is the right word. He and I were never... close friends. I'm just… _curious_ , to see if what you and Xi say is correct, if he really is so different that you hardly recognized the man..."

Arceus smiled, escorting her out of the study and back towards the dinner table. "The time will come that you will see him." He would have to apologize to Naka later for leaving in the middle of dinner… and he may need to find her some beautiful flowers to seal the apology. "The time will come when we _all_ reunite, daughter. It _will_ come. We are a family, and neither time nor space can separate us forever..."

* * *

 _He chose to ignore the white creature at first, but as soon as he reached a small lake, he turned and watched._

 _The creature was flying… and without wings. In the distance was something like an enormous horse, and if he looked hard enough, he could see that it was carrying humans upon its back, up out of the fire and back into safety. They scurried and escaped around him, past the lake, and suddenly the roaring fire engulfed the lakeshore, licking at the water's edge, almost as if it wanted to swallow the lake itself._

 _But he remained, spellbound. The white horse with the flowing mane flew straight back into the fire, over and over again… though it was visibly tiring, and running out of energy. It was going to get itself killed. And for a few humans? What was it thinking?_

 _Though his lungs heaved with exhaustion, he attempted at a few spells, trying to push water from the lake into the fire. But water was simply not his element, and he only knew how to move rocks. He flapped his wings, scooping water out of the lake with him, but the fire was vengeful, and captured anew anything that he tried to free from it. He thought of quaking the earth beneath the fire, try to suffocate it with churning dirt and rocks, but that would have killed more creatures than it would save._

 _Deciding that the smoke had infected the creature's brain, driven it to madness, he threw himself into the air, towards the white horse, and roared._

 _Of course this got the creature's attention, but the thing kept at its course, delivering human bodies from the flames. They were probably all dead now, and it was a lost cause. He flew farther towards the creature and roared again, but nothing changed._

 _So Giratina turned and flew away, but his lungs were collapsing, and his wings were failing. He struggled to fly above the fire, but strength eluded him. He fell into the fire, and heat and pain engulfed his entire body. He ran, stumbled, and fainted, losing consciousness entirely._

 _Now, while we Legendaries are not infinite in physical strength, and require rigorous training in order to fight such things as natural disasters, we are not bound by the chains of mortality. The door between mortality and the afterlife is open to most creatures, but closed to us. We can draw very near to the border of death, hover on the brink itself… but never cross the border. Even Arceus does not fully understand why._

 _And so it happened, when Giratina finally blinked awake, and his whole body felt like smoke and ruin… he was confused to find himself alive. Arceus was crouching over him, and leaped up in surprise when the burnt creature opened his eyes._

 _Though they did not speak the same language, the questions were heard: Who are you, and why aren't you dead?_


	8. Smelting

_smelting -_

Giratina opened his eyes.

Weariness clutched at his sinews like ice, and gray specks of vision swam in his eyes. After some time between wariness and sleep, his breath regulated, and he lifted his head.

The Reverse World, his old friend and conniving enemy, stared unabashedly back at him.

A heaving waterfall tumbled upward from the deepest black below him to the highest zenith of sky, curving with the vertical horizon before a sprawling swirl of confused green and purple sunset hues, smoky clouds, darkly glowing anti-stars. A landscape of glorious wrongness.

Gira heaved himself upward. His ribs and knees ached, as if he'd been thrown onto the ground by force. After rising to his knees, it occurred to him that that was exactly what had happened.

Only last night – or a minute ago, or weeks ago, or _however_ long it had been before he'd lost consciousness entirely – the Alpha had stripped him of nearly all of his power, and forced him through a wormhole. All sense of gravity and realness had fled from him, and he'd slipped down, down, ever deeper into blackness… until his eyes had adjusted to the inverted colors, his lungs to the lack of air pressure…

 _Once again, I am here._

He felt ready to scream, but his lungs seized up like rubber, and there wasn't enough oxygen in the air to produce a scream without exhausting himself anew.

Shakily, he bent his fingers and flexed that intangible muscle inside his mind. A strange lightheadedness came upon him as he felt air rushing toward him, oxygen gathering into a breathable concentration. _Good… I can at least do that. He didn't dare take everything from me…_

As his strength returned, so did his mind. The steely green of Arceus's eyes. The iron resolve of the Alpha's jaw as he said the last words Gira would ever hear from another living being: "I can do no more for you."

"Gah!" he shouted, clawing at the air around him, sending dizzy sparks of dark matter in every direction – which fizzed out of sight almost instantly. The fabric of space was belligerently firm, like invisible stone, and he could not rip it as he once could. It mended itself instantaneously, flashing back into transparentness. He could hardly _disturb_ it, let alone shape it to his command…

 _You knew the law and willfully broke it. You attempted to kill my son, Dialga; he would be dead were it not for my interference. Even ignoring your crimes against humans, the murder of a Legendary is the most grievous sin in existence, and as such I am bound to inflict upon you the most grievous punishment. You are damned. I can do no more for you._

Not that the old creature had _ever_ done a thing for him.

In an effort to distract himself from losing his temper like a stupid child, he stepped aimlessly forward.

The waterfall before him used to be a pillar of ice – by his own doing, he recalled. He'd sculpted it, once, in his youth, trying to learn how antimatter worked; what laws it obeyed. After a few years, he'd cracked it. Antimatter liked to be contrary, just for the sake of being contrary. You had to melt anti-water to make it ice. You had to _burn_ it to solidify it, like smelting bronze.

Fire had never been his strong suit, but he inhaled, summoned seismic heat in the pit of his chest, and rushed forward, flicking his wrist like a flintstone, sending all of the heat from his body into the waterfall, remembering how he had once flattened entire battalions, reduced entire _forests_ to desert, in his days of glory…

A flicker of fire, a passing shimmer of snow… and…

"Nothing," he muttered. "Of course; what else. You were kind enough to let my wind-magic remain, gave me means to sustain my own breath, but you wouldn't dare give me means to _hurt_ anything, Alpha – heaven forbid…"

His voice hardly carried, for there were hardly any molecules in the air to conduct sound waves. The sound was death-dry, like his throat. The waterfall hardly even whispered. There was no life. No birds or insects, no wind, no spirits, alive or dead… _nothing._

He'd been angry for so many years that his heart was empty now, and all he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep for a thousand useless years; forget the Alpha, forget God, forget heaven and earth, and disappear gracelessly into the nothing.

* * *

Mey She practically had to haul her sister over her shoulder, like a sack of depressed, psychic oats, into the farmer's market on the Wednesday afternoon.

"Nobody will even _notice_ us," she affirmed under her breath, squeezing Xi's hand as she nodded hello to a redheaded watermelon vendor across the street. "We're just two young women buying groceries. Just take a deep breath and _relax,_ or I'll… um…" Mey wasn't terribly experienced with making threats.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" muttered Xi, closing her eyes and setting her jaw. "I'm… fine. Let's just do this quickly."

The January afternoon was bleak; only a fuzzy cotton blanket for sky, with occasional raindrops every minute or so. Snow was a foreign concept to her balmy Georgia village, even in the dead of winter, but rain wasn't a far-off possibility today. And despite her general dislike for getting water in her face, they were out of flour. And numerous other things…

"Howdy, Madeline," called a portly, mustached man under a striped cloth veranda. "Haven't seen you in a week or two! Who's your friend?"

 _Ah! We forgot to think of a name for you!_ "Hey, Bob. She's m-my sister… Lily," Mey blurted, smiling. "She's here on vacation. Got any good veggies today?" She set a cloth bag in Xi's hands and motioned for her to grab whatever she liked. _For the gumbo tonight, I was thinking celery and onion… and of course we'll need to make tamato paste…_

Mey looked up. Xi, hunched over and willowy, was slowly loading tamatoes into the bag with a faraway look in her eyes. She was thinking about Giratina again… as always. Her brain was like a wagon wheel that kept turning the same direction. After everything Mey had tried, she couldn't snap her out of it…

"So, where're ya from, Lily?" the man was asking, but Xi didn't answer. Bob looked sideways at Mey. "Distracted by my gorgeous produce?"

Mey blushed. "Sorry, Bob, she's not much of a talker..."

"I came from Hokkaido, Japan," replied Xi suddenly, looking up. "Pleasure to meet you, Robert. We have all we need." With that, she turned away, toward the dirt road back to the cottage.

With a start, Mey wrung her hands and rushed toward Bob, pulling out her purse. "B-but we haven't paid yet, Lily!" Hastily searching through Xi's short-term memories, she counted the vegetables Xi had picked… twelve entire tamatoes, for just two people? Was the girl _batty_? She quickly grabbed a few other veggies and herbs, handed the man twenty dollars, whispered, "Keep the change," then ran after Xi, who was already out of the market.

"We still need flour," Mey sighed, catching up with her. "And sausage, I just realized. What's wrong with you?"

"Too many minds," Xi murmured, staring off into the near-featureless landscape. "Too much to listen to. It hurts my head."

"Well, you just have to deal with it, Yuu Xi! You're a _psychic!_ How do you think _I_ feel, constantly listening to your brooding?"

 _Oh… no._

Xi clutched the grocery bag to her chest with both fists and walked swiftly down the road, toward the sweeping grey hills and sleepy sky.

Mey felt a rock hit her stomach. She stumbled after her. "No, no, no, Xi… I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. Please!"

 _Well, of course you meant it; I can read your mind. I already knew you'd been feeling that way, Mey._

"Xi-xi, I know it's hard for you. I should be more understanding. You're going through a lot. I – "

Xi turned around and looked Mey in the eye. There was an unusual stiffness to Xi's light-brown eyes, like hardened amber. "You're the _Being of Emotion_. You are the most compassionate creature in existence. If I'm too much for _you_ to bear, it means that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way I'm living my life, and I need to fix it." She spun around and continued on.

An ink-red ledyba flitted through the air and landed on Xi's shoulder as she walked, but the blond girl paid no heed. Mey listened to Xi's thoughts for a second, then picked up her pace and came up next to her. "What… are you going to fix?"

"Everything, of course," her sister stated matter-of-factly. "Firstly, I need to finish that wretched book. Once all my thoughts are on paper, they'll be out of my head, and I will be able to be _me_ again. Secondly, starting tomorrow, I will subject myself to no less than one hour per day amidst normal civilization, and get myself used to being around people again. I will increase the time by one-hour increments every week. No – every two weeks. Thirdly – "

 _Xi-xi, emotions don't work that way. You're thinking of it too mathematically –_

"Thirdly, I will take up employ as a professor again, and I will study Legendary Pokemon. I will write a book about each one of us, since I know the most about us, after all. I'll be a Historian of the Legendaries, in fact!"

Mey stopped in her tracks. The ledyba flew away, and a few raindrops spattered across Mey's forehead, but she hardly blinked. "You… _what_?"

Xi looked back over her shoulder and smiled. "I've wanted to do that since the day I became human. Haven't you picked up on that by now? Come on; let's make some gumbo."

"But – but, we still don't have any _flour_ , you slowbro!"

Xi stopped. "R-right." She turned around, staring back at the bustling market, the people of all shapes and sizes milling about. "I… suppose I forgot about that detail."

Mey held out her hand. "You just need forty more minutes; then you'll hit your hour quota. That's enough to buy flour and sausage, and maybe some pretty lilies for the vase on the table. I guess I've been thinking about lilies lately…" The rain was accumulating, and Mey cringed. "…But, maybe let's take a bit less than forty minutes, because I think we're about to get a storm."

Xi took in a deep breath in and out. "I did not anticipate that it would be so difficult to endure an onslaught of human thoughts again, after being a hermit for ten years…" She stepped forward. "Let's say… how about… thirty minutes?"

"Thirty it is."

* * *

 _Arceus was not a dragon, but he had the stamina and the power of one. It is little surprise that folk depictions of him often portrayed him as a dragon, even though he is more of an enormous horse. Giratina saw him, in terms of physical might and magical prowess, as a peer._

 _…Or rather, that was his wishful thinking._

 _In truth, Arceus is, and was, much more than Giratina could ever hope to be. It enraged him, of course – he would settle for nothing less than being the best._

 _At first, however, they were friendly to one another. Arceus showed him the lands of northern Asia that he had originally called home. He taught Giratina air and water techniques, and Giratina passed on to Arceus what little he possessed in rock- and ground-magic that Arceus had not already achieved._

 _It became clear to Giratina, quite early, that this creature was not ordinary._

 _Chief among Arceus's flaws – in Giratina's perception – was his excessive preoccupation with human civilization. He would often stop mid-hunting to rescue a human from falling off of a cliff, or from being eaten by an ursaring, or from being crushed by a falling boulder. He treated them like darling little cubchoos, as if he were their doting mother. It boggled Giratina's mind._

 _But he let the white-maned creature have his little fun, so long as it allowed Giratina to continue learning from his bewildering magical genius._

 _Until the day that Giratina found himself particularly hungry, and chased down a small flock of human hunters, armed with nothing but bronze daggers and kneecaps. He had killed two of them, and was about to kill the last one when something heavy knocked the wind out of him, and a horrid roar echoed through the air. He looked up to see two enraged, emerald-green eyes boring into his, challenging him. "Do anything else to the humans," they said, "and I will do unto you as you do unto them."_

 _Feeling rather frustrated, he lashed out at Arceus, which rewarded him with a scratch to the face. A thrill of fury came through him, and the first battle between two Legendary Pokemon known to history commenced._

 _Arceus bested him, but not easily. They traded blow for blow, countering rock with water, water with air, air with rock. The time they'd spent training one another came to a head as they attempted to outsmart one another, catch the other off guard. Giratina took risks, trying to remember things he'd learned from observing other species – spells of fire, poison, and ice – and was only mildly successful, for the time he spent distractedly trying to pull things out of the back corners of his mind backfired as the Alpha pinned him to the ground, one pointed hoof above his trachea._

 _The surviving human had escaped long before the battle ended, and as soon as Arceus realized this, he released Giratina at once and jumped up, leaving the dragon bewildered, angry, and bruised._

 _He looked at the two dead humans lying on the ground, and then looked into Arceus's eyes._

 _The friendship had ended._


	9. Life's Purpose

_life's purpose -_

 _1972; Norwich, Great Britain_

In a clean, white office towered a straight-backed woman, leafing through a small book with a furrowed brow, murmuring to herself softly. She wore an expensive-looking dark grey suit and sparkling earrings; her hair was snow-white, but she looked no older than fifty.

Dawn slowly sat down at the chair, but Ms. Catherine White, president of the Norwich branch of Silph Co., did not break her concentration. Dawn shuffled with her bag and rubbed her hands together, trying to slow her heart and remember all that she'd rehearsed. _I have excellent interpersonal skills. I love working with people as a team. I… I'm great with computers, and I'm especially great with pokemon…_

"Miss Ikeda, I presume?" said the woman in an elegant British lilt.

Dawn's eyes snapped up. "Yes, ma'am."

Two dark eyes peered at Dawn from over the rim of a pair of silver glasses. "You're the girl who is famous."

She cringed. "I wouldn't say that – "

Ms. White snapped the book closed with one hand and gracefully took a seat, folding her hands on the desk. There were slight wrinkles about her deep-set eyes and her sharp nose, and an intensity in her gaze. "I'm not an avid subscriber of Japanese contest shows, but my associates informed me that you are quite a… big _deal_ in Japan."

 _Man! I thought I'd left it out of my resume._ "Well, I did win the Sinnoh Grand National Contest six years ago, if that's what you're referring to," Dawn confessed, reminding herself to straighten her spine and relax her shoulders downward. "It was an… exciting accomplishment for me. Back when I was a teenager," she added hastily.

"And you've left the glamourous world of choreography, costumes and music, to be an executive assistant at a pokeball-manufacturing company," the woman replied dryly, narrowing her eyes as she glanced over the papers listing Dawn's experiences. "You are the first Contest champion to sit in my office, you realize. To be frank, I'm curious why the managers approved you to interview with me, especially as you're still so young."

"Yes. I mean – I'm not surprised," Dawn chuckled. Apparently, the man who was supposed to conduct Dawn's second and final interview was sick with strep throat, and rather than postpone, they'd decided to sit her down with the president of _everything._ And even though she'd kicked her stage fright into the corridor years ago, something about this woman made her want to apologize for troubling her and jump on the bus back home.

Dawn cleared her throat. "The reason is… well. I loved traveling and competing and battling and all that, but… I'm not a child anymore, and I've been searching for something I can depend on for a steady income." She hadn't meant for it to come out quite that desperate-sounding, but it was too late. "And I've had plenty of experience in clerical and managerial positions, and I honestly enjoy business. I like working with clients from all different backgrounds, and finding ways to make them happy." _Well, that's not the whole reason why I quit contests, but… it's not a lie._

Ms. White reclined back in her chair and removed her glasses, studying Dawn. _Why does it seem like she's a hawk deciding whether or not to eat me for dinner?_ She idly noticed that every last inch of the woman's face was masked in finely-tuned makeup. People who wore so much makeup usually were trying to impress everyone, but somehow she didn't get that feeling from this particular woman.

"And you flew all the way from northern Japan, here to Norwich?" Ms. White glanced down at the papers again. "Your English is flawless."

"Well, I'm only half-Japanese," Dawn explained, feeling the tiniest blush. _Why is all this important? What on Earth does it have to do with my qualifications?_ "My mom's from Tokyo, and my dad's from New York. I've always wanted to see more of the world."

"And how do you find this rainy, cobblestoned land of Britain?" the woman muttered, a hint of a smile coming to her darkly-painted lips. The window behind her brightened for a moment; the heavy clouds were sliding quickly in front of the sun, casting the world in quickly alternating light and dark.

"Well, it's beautiful," she answered honestly. "I enjoy the old buildings and the abundant culture here. And there are a lot of exotic pokemon. It's fun filling up my 'dex with new entries."

At that comment, something in Ms. White's face hardened. "And what is your philosophy regarding pokemon, Miss Dawn?"

Instantly, Dawn's thoughts flitted to the four pokeballs resting inside her backpack. She'd had to put away her team before coming into the building, as the offices held a strict no-pokemon policy. It made sense; any haphazard stream of ice or fire could wreak havoc on the computer and filing systems. Still, she ached to let them out as soon as the interview was over. And… she ached for that _thing_ she didn't let herself think about, lest her emotions get the better of her.

"What exactly do you mean by that question, ma'am?" she responded, not because she didn't know what she meant, but she wanted to say exactly what Ms. White wanted to hear. More importantly, she wanted to know _Ms. White's_ philosophy.

The woman leaned in, smiling knowingly. "You didn't win that contest without _working_ for it, correct?"

 _She's really stuck on that, isn't she._ "Of course not," Dawn sighed.

"You put your blood and _sweat_ into it, I'm sure. And so did your… cohort."

"My… team?" Dawn asked, hands clenching. "Well, yes. They were real troupers. They worked _extremely_ hard. I was very proud of them. We… worked as equal partners, I'd say."

"They were just as invested as you were?"

"Yes, they put their all into it. Especially… well, especially Pip and Bun – my two best performers. They put everything they had into learning routines so we could earn the highest rating. They were very enthusiastic about it. It really was a privilege to teach them."

The president still seemed dissatisfied. Dawn longed for the woman to just say what was on her mind.

"Why did you cease performing, then?"

 _Never mind, not that. Anything but that._ "I got older. I had to pay the bills. My contest winnings were a blessing, but they didn't take me far enough for a contesting career to be… sustainable." She focused on keeping exasperation out of her voice.

"Well, I suppose that's understandable," the woman murmured.

 _Why isn't she asking me about my time overseeing Pokemarts all over Hokkaido and beyond? She hasn't even said a word about my bachelor's degree, for creation's sake! I know the managers went over that with me in my first interview, but… maybe I should say something?_

"What is your purpose in life, young lady?"

Dawn's eyes widened. There was an unreadable expression in Ms. White's face. "…To support my pokemon. And… build a foundation for a future family… hopefully."

"Yes, yes, that's all well and good. To secure financial stability, and all that. _Every_ human being and their uncle wants that," the woman scoffed, flipping her hand. "Let me tell you something about me." Her dark brown eyes glinted. "The reason I helped found this company, and the reason that I remain in it today, is because people like _you_ exist. People who use pokemon as means to an end – whether they do it benignly or not, they do it. My job, my purpose in _existing_ , is making sure these creatures receive the best care and the highest level of respect possible. Now, tell me: why do you _exist,_ Dawn Ikeda? Why do you believe the universe deigned to put _you_ here on this planet?"

 _What does she want me to say?_ Dawn tightened her jaw. _No. No, what do I want to say?_ Pip's little blue face came into her mind, and she squeezed her wrists, forcing herself not to betray any grief. It was five years ago that he and Bun died, but it felt like yesterday. "Ms. White, I stopped performing because I felt that I… had failed my team, in some way. I hadn't given them what they deserved. I… want to make life better for pokemon. These... _amazing_ creatures have changed my life profoundly, and I want to repay them for all they've done for me. I… owe them so much. I want them to be safe and healthy… but not just that; I want their lives to be… happy. Fulfilled." A bit of shaky warmth sat just behind her eyes, and she felt moisture in them. _Keep it together, Dawn. If you don't get this job, you're eating canned beans for the next three months._

The woman's eyebrows lifted. "That is… your existential mission, then? Your reason for living?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Hm."

With that, the woman leafed through the rest of Dawn's papers, her letters of recommendation, her degree and certificates… and nodded. "Your age?"

"…Twenty-five."

Ms. White nodded again and flicked her eyes up to the ceiling, as if calculating. "Then… hm… and the… yes, right…"

 _She's… not actually satisifed with my statement… is she?_

"Well, you've a good natural poise about you, and the requisite job experience, but you will need to improve your wardrobe. None of this wrinkled-blouse and old-slacks business. I expect a pressed, steamed suit every day, with shining hair and glowing face; am I clear, miss Dawn?"

A jolt of electricity came down Dawn's spine. "Wh – "

"Training begins tomorrow, at six in the morning. Bring any legal identification documents you own, bottled water, and comfortable heels. You'll be on your feet all day."

" _You're giving me the job?!_ "she blurted, rising. "Weren't there other interviews after me?"

"I don't subscribe to the tedious ritual of going through the motions when I feel satisfied about my decision. I'm only getting older, and I'd rather relax with a mimosa. Six o' clock, pressed suit, smile on." She put her glasses back on. "Can you manage that?"

"Yes, yes! Yes, ma'am! Thank you!" She shot her hand forward, shaking the woman's cold, white hand firmly. "Thank you very much."

"Of course. You'll also have to work on those nerves of yours, my dear. I am not the most intimidating person in this company, if you can imagine."

 _I really can't._ She almost said it out loud, but bit her tongue. "Thank you. Have a wonderful day, Ms. White."

"Thank you. I plan to."

* * *

It was nearly the end of April, and the cherry blossoms were early this year. Azi walked among a twirling storm of pink and red, watching children dance and laugh gleefully. Officer Tanaka, walking beside her with a notebook in his hand, thought idly, _I remember when I was that young._

Ryo was in his early thirties, like she ostensibly was, and he had dark, smooth skin and almond-shaped eyes. He had a relatively gentle heart for a police officer, and frankly, she appreciated that. As tough as she considered herself, it was grating to read contemptful minds for long periods of time – especially if said mind belonged to your professional partner.

She scanned the rural neighborhood around them, searching for house number seventeen. "Here it is," she said, pointing, and smiled as a leafeon scampered immediately in front of them, chasing a little boy of six. "'Scuse me."

"Sorry!" shouted the boy, guffawing as the leafeon tackled him. "Aah! Aspen is killing me!"

With a smirk, Ryo came up next to her and went to the old mahogany door, rapping three times. _I hope these people are, at least, mentally present,_ he remarked inside his mind. Azi had to keep herself from snorting. Yesterday, they'd interrogated a woman who'd had more than one too many wines after dark…

The door opened, and a short, withering man answered the door. "Police?" he asked in a shaky, old voice. His mind was… like a river. Clear and focused, but always rushing forward, never stopping, never resting. It reminded her of the climate of Kia's mind.

Ryo's shoulders relaxed somewhat as he showed his badge. "Officers Tanaka and Jackson."

The house was humble and wooden, like most houses in rural Japan. The man was lonely, with no family and few visitors. He offered them miso soup, and Ryo obliged, but Azi politely declined. The old man's thoughts indicated that this was some of the only food he possessed, and she preferred to keep it in his possession.

"Haoka-san," she began, taking out a pencil. "We received word that you saw a group of unscrupulous folk around your town?"

"Team Galactic thugs," the man confirmed, sitting down crookedly, as his hip was sore. "And the word I used was un _sanitary._ The smell was indescribable, miss."

 _I like him,_ thought Ryo, finishing his soup. "They owned a skuntank, perhaps?"

"Whatever they owned, it was also ghastly loud and woke up the whole neighborhood. Set the dogs a-barking. More soup?"

 _Say no,_ Azi hoped, and Ryo waved his hand in a _no, thank you._ "Did you see them?"

"I looked out the window," the man answered, "and it was the middle of the night, but they were wearing the Galactic uniform, with that big shiny G, and walking through the streets."

Azi's eyes widened at the image that suddenly entered her partner's mind. Ryo's _brother_ was a member of Team Galactic. How could she have missed that for the past month they'd been partners? She searched his memories, but the man was disciplined as he focused his mind back on their citizen's experiences. "And how many were there?" Ryo asked.

"Seven or eight," the man muttered, "and there was some fat creature with 'em. Didn't see it well enough."

 _Probably a Skuntank,_ both Azi and Ryo thought, and she leaned in toward the man. "General demographics of the group? Male, female, short or tall, et cetera?"

As the man continued describing the group and Ryo took notes, Azi soaked up all the memory she could. There had been a shifty look in their eyes, as if they were searching for something specific. A local treasure, perhaps? A rare pokemon?

This particular group was the most prolific underground battling organizations she'd ever known, besides of couse Team Rocket, whose prolonged worldwide kidnappings had almost prompted intervention on _Arceus's_ part. She, along with the Chief and many others, suspected that Galactic was some kind of a resurgence of Rocket, but so far, she hadn't been able to identify any members who had also been in Rocket…

She focused again on Ryo's brother, as Ryo's mind briefly flitted back to the subject. He was older than him, and had always had a rebellious streak… he'd joined when Galactic had promised him high pay, free Pokemon, and the opportunity to become a legendary battler…

"Amanda," Ryo muttered in a low voice. The man had asked her a question.

"I'm sorry?" she said, meeting the old man's eyes.

"I said, you look familiar, Jackson-san. Have you ever lived here in Tsugawa before?"

She paled slightly. She'd lived _everywhere_ before, being two thousand years old, and frankly, it was hard for her to remember when was where. "No, sir; you must be thinking of someone else." She racked her memories. _Please, let this not be a man who recognizes me from decades ago, who would be able to tell that I haven't aged…_

But the man dismissed the thought, assuming his mind was playing tricks on him. _I'll have to move out of Japan soon,_ she thought sadly. _This is a wonderful country, but I've lived in almost every province with a different name. Any longer, and I'll attract unneeded attention…_

The rest of the interview proceeded normally; clarifying details, promising follow-up if any pertinent information was discovered, politely refusing another offer of miso.

Ryo closed the door behind them. _She's so distracted all the time,_ he was musing with no small amount of irritation. _It's like I have to pinch her to get her attention._

That was true. It was true about her sisters too. It was the way life was for her, sometimes. But… she still hated hearing it from a colleague.

"Seems like a minor disturbance," she said, walking ahead of Ryo and pulling out her car keys. "Nothing too dangerous, for now. But we should keep our eye on this town. They're searching for something."

"More pokemon to steal, I'd bet," Ryo agreed, getting into the car. "As always."

Her eyes narrowed. Two decades ago, when they were in their prime, Team Rocket had seemed to be trying to accomplish more than just undermining the authority of the Pokemon League by stealing trainers' pokemon and holding illegal battles. When they'd been infiltrated and disbanded, their ringleader, Giovanni, had vanished without a trace before too much information could be pulled out of him, but from what few thoughts Azi had managed to squeeze out of their higher-ups, she felt that what they were really searching for was… the Legendaries. Her _family._

Her knuckles tensed as she drove back to the station. Sometimes she caught herself missing the ancient days when pokemon existed peacefully with humans. There were no pokeballs, no capturing, no making _slaves_ out of pokemon, just… love and cooperation…

Then again, she always looked back on history with a rose-colored tint. Life had never been _really_ safe. It just… felt as if the world was always speeding up, faster and faster, without ever giving her time to catch her breath, and there were always more dangers around the corner and no explanation for them.

"Are you still having headaches?" Ryo asked her.

She looked at him. _He thinks that's the reason I'm frequently distracted._ "No," she responded, turning her attention back to the blossom-coated streets. "They stopped about a month after Keaton attacked."

"Hmm," her partner murmured, unsatisfied. _She must just be preoccupied with how abnormally strong that ghost was. We haven't had any leads in three months, but I think she's still thinking about it._

They arrived at the station, and she turned off the car, sighing and looking at Ryo again. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Sure," he said, shrugging and picking up his bag. "But if there's something… bothering you, tell me." With that, he exited the car.

She watched him enter the station, wishing, not for the first time, that she was human.

* * *

 _History woke up from its slumber after Giratina and Arceus went their separate ways. The first became a wanderer, an explorer of far-off lands and collector of skills and knowledge, fiercely independent and determined to be the fastest and strongest. He felt that it was his purpose in existing; to see to what unimagined limits he could take his mind and body._

 _Arceus became the Alpha._

 _None of us truly know how this came to pass, as we are not allowed inside Arceus's mind. He tells me that he saw a divine face and heard a voice as soft as feathers and as piercing as a knife, which declared: Your life's purpose is to protect the balance to between human and pokemon. To ensure that neither side eradicates the other. And to command all other immortal beings to do the same._

 _It is my understanding that he was already disposed towards protecting humans anyway, and this is why he was worthy of and prepared for such a charge.  
_

 _Meanwhile, Giratina was an unequaled titan of seismic and torrential magic. He would very soon discover that his abilities were not limited to the physical realm… and that the Alpha was not his only competition for supremacy._

 _As I said before, history had awakened._

 _In the Baltic Sea, a dragon with scales as white as newborn pearls and eyes bloodred emerged from the icy water and drank her first lungful of air. In the same breath, a dragon with skin like the night sky and clad in steel armor burst from the sand of the Sahara Desert. Not too many centuries afterwards, immortality was born in the Pacific Ocean in the form of a great whale; in the mountains of Israel in the shape of four colossal titans made of ice and earth. In the ensuing centuries, a concourse of deathless beings followed.  
_

 _Humans, too, were grasping their first breaths of power over life and death. In the second millennium B.C., they entered the still-present age of weapons, exploration, conquest. Fortresses, temples, gold and blood dotted the landscape._

 _Earth was wide awake and her heart was beating. The era of Legendaries and kings had descended upon her soil.  
_


	10. Thunder

_thunder –_

Catherine White awoke from her dreams to the sound of murderous thunder.

Her neck creaked as she inhaled a burst of air and sat up. "Confound it," she muttered, getting out of the fluffy bed and pushing the window closed. She always liked falling asleep with the window open; there was something soothing about trees rustling and crickets conversing, but she'd neglected to check the overnight weather report.

Cold drops had soaked the middle of her silk nightgown, sending unpleasant chills through her veins, and she cursed softly. She hovered both hands over the wet spots, willing the water to remove itself from the garment and dissolve back into the air. Ahh… warmth.

 _Must be almost directly overhead,_ she mused, watching the rain pelt the glass and the lightning attack the sky. _The thunder shook the very walls…_

"Madam?" A gentle, whispering voice.

Her eyes snapped up and she turned toward the door of her large bedroom. "Edgar?"

Slowly, the heavy mahogany door creaked open, and the head of her personal staff, with his mouse-brown mustache, peeked through the crack. "You… were shouting moments ago. Is everything all right, madam?"

 _What on earth was I dreaming about?_ "It was the thunder, Edgar. Merely a nightmare."

"I thought perhaps that was the case. Well, good night, madam."

"…Good night, sir."

She turned back to the rain and lightning. Planet Earth was so… _elegant_ in her fury. In her most dangerous moments, when she shook the ground and chilled the bone, that was when she was the most beautiful. Strangely, she envied Earth sometimes for that unparalleled dignity.

 _April showers have always brought May flowers,_ her father had mused one spring afternoon _. But what does April thunder bring?_ He'd smirked at her, fondly. _It brings a grin to Kia's face, and she comes out to play…_

Slowly, she reached toward the window again, feeling the frenetic energy of the water just beyond it. She felt its trajectory, its momentum, its tireless obedience to the whims of the sky above it…

Slowly, carefully, she opened the window just a crack.

Cold moisture flew from the tiny opening, and she moved her fingertips toward it, letting frigid sparks of energy course through her bloodstream. She breathed heavily and extended her senses far into the storm, willing the water to listen to _her_ rather than to the sky.

It resisted for a good few minutes, but, perhaps finally recognizing who in fact she was, it consented.

She willed it to slow in its fall… to hit the ground with less force, to lessen the crash of sound it made against the walls of her manor… to dance to the ground rather than skyrocket, to sway back and forth with the winds, to create graceful, swirling shapes in the air, like little water-fairies at a thundering, roaring ball…

 _…But you mustn't get carried away, my little dragon. Lightning can strike even the strongest among us._

She pushed and locked the window, letting the storm return to its natural state.

The roar was muffled now, but still there. A storm lurked just beyond a pane of glass, and she could still feel it, ever so faintly...

 _It's been a while._ She exhaled and rubbed her fingers together. _A long while. I've almost forgotten how to do something as elementary as moving water molecules, something I've been doing since childhood!_

She sighed and turned back to the bed… and her eyes flitted back to the little brown book on her nightstand.

 _Behind the Mirror_ sat quietly, illuminated by intermittent bursts of lightning. A short volume, bound by hastily crafted leather and twine, merely an unfinished draft. Xi had sent it to her just days ago with a brief letter, catching her rather off guard, and asking for her "blunt, unrestrained opinion." Truthfully, her opinion was that its subject matter was something she wanted nothing to do with.

She moved back onto her bed, tucking her legs under the thick blankets. The more she read of that thing, the less sleep she got every night. But the less sleep she got every night, the more she wanted to read it…

 _Blast it, Xi; you've made an insomniac out of me._ She flicked a pale finger in the air, switching the lamp on, and grabbed the book. _But I suppose you had your usual wise reasons in sending this, sister. You are the Being of Knowledge; it's one of your duties to ensure that I never lose myself completely…_

She flipped to page seventeen.

 _Palkia was the first to be discovered by the newly-called Alpha. He had journeyed far from his homeland of the Himalayas, in search for these "immortal beings" of which the divine voice had spoken. He'd given up looking for Giratina long ago; the dragon had all but disappeared off the face of the earth (in fact, Giratina was, around that time, exploring the African savannahs and perfecting his flying maneuvers by practicing against flocks of wild flygon)._

 _Palkia was still a smallish thing when Arceus found her around 2300 B.C.. Even in her adolescence, she was beautiful - an amphibious dragon with graceful fins and pearlescent claws. He recognized her by another peculiar fact of the Legendaries: we are, for the most part, unique. Apart from myself and my triplet sisters, we are the only of our kind, genetically speaking. There was no other creature, under the water or above it, with Palkia's shape and color._

 _Arceus tested her at first. He watched her from afar, observing how she lived; how she survived. As expected, even as a little child, she had unnerving physical strength and endurance. She could fight off gyarados with tooth and claw, could hunt down fish without outside help, and possessed impressive water-magic, enough to propel herself through the water at menacing speeds. He felt confirmation that she was one of those creatures he would watch over. But it was not until he introduced himself, bowed politely, and looked into her bright cherry eyes that he felt something he hadn't known existed in the entire world: fatherly love._

 _He vowed that he would protect her all the days of his life, and she gladly accepted his companionship, seeing as being the only one of one's kind is a rather lonely circumstance._

 _He named her Palkia, "pale one" in the local Germanic language, an ancestor of modern-day Frisian…_

Palkia closed the book.

When Xi had sent her this little twine-woven book, she'd said it was about _Gira_. That much alone was enough to put Palkia on edge. However, Xi possessed knowledge of _all_ of them; she'd studied each member of her immediate and extended family up and down and backwards over the course of her two thousand years, and it was only natural that she'd want to record _everything_ she knew, putting the information at risk to spread through the world…

 _I must speak with Xi. She treads on thin ice, recording these truths. And I do too, reading them._

* * *

Mey She watched her sister pack clothes, food, and money into a small green suitcase, listening to the thoughts that were… somehow… _happy._

"You're leaving now, aren't you," she said quietly.

Xi paused. She looked up and found Mey's eyes. Xi's old posture was back from before this whole mess with Giratina happened. That erect spine, balanced shoulders, that almost wry glint in her eyes. "Yes, I am."

Mey had promised herself early that morning, when she'd first heard the resolve in Xi's mind, that she wouldn't cry. She just _wouldn't._ There would be no point to it. She'd been able to nurse Xi back to mental health for five months now, and it was time to let her be her own person again…

Xi came and wrapped her spindly arms around Mey, and warmth bloomed into her heart and mind. _Thank you so much, Mey She. For everything. For being my best friend._

Mey gave in and let the tears flow, squeezing her sister tight. _You are always welcome here, Xi-xi. And please write me often. I'm just a letter away._

Xi loosened her grip and smiled softly. "I think we both needed this."

Mey nodded, chuckling. "It's hard being a psychic when no one else is. I like having you around. But – you need to go be a professor. Go write books for the whole world. Go learn everything that you don't already know, not that there's much to fit that category."

Xi snorted and zipped the suitcase shut, hauling it up by the handle. Mey had to stifle a laugh. _You're skinny as branches, Xi-xi. That thing probably weighs twice as much as you do._

 _Nothing a little well-concealed wind-magic can't handle,_ Xi replied, fastening her coat around her. "I'll write to you every week, Mey-mey."

"I will too," echoed Mey, grinning and waving as Xi turned, went through the door…

…and closed it.

The window that was Xi's mind closed with it, and the thoughts were muffled now, as if heard through water… fading and fading, until there was only silence.

 _Back to real life,_ thought Mey. Back to being the only psychic in the world, and hiding her mind from everyone. _No, no,_ she corrected herself, hugging her arms and letting the warm tears flow again. _I'll write her every week. I won't be hiding. I'll have her to talk to. And… maybe I'll start writing to Azi and Kia again… maybe even Dia and Cousin Reshi… perhaps… perhaps even Father…_

But despite her best attempts to console herself, the tears did not stop.

 _._

 _.._

 _…_

 _Yuu Xi._

 _…_

 _Yuu Xi. That's your name, right?_

 _The little gold-colored elf looked up, and the eyes were just like hers. Big and shining, like little yellow moons…_

 _Yuu Xi. You can hear my mind too! You're a psychic, like me! My name's Mey She. We're twin sisters, you see? We just didn't know it until now. I'm so glad I found you._

 _Yuu Xi suddenly gasped and held her hands to her temples, cringing in pain. too many thoughts, she screamed. yours and mine, echoing back and forth. echoing forever. too many. stop it. stop!_

 _Mey rushed forward and held her sister's cheeks. It's okay, Yuu Xi. I'm here for you. I want to help you. I want –_

 _STOP!_

 _Yuu Xi flew away, trembling._

 _…_

 _.._

 _._

* * *

A little white shack with two windows and a slanted roof sat humbly among a patch of trees and a whispering river, sixty minutes' walking distance from the nearest supermarket.

Hiyan walked near it, studying the condition of the wood, the strength of the door. Still sturdy. The paint was severely peeling, but it wouldn't be too much work to renew it. Given the choice, he'd replace the color with something distinctive but not too invasive; perhaps a dark brown-red. He stepped inside, and the smell of wood and mold came to him. It hadn't been inhabited in perhaps… five years? Ten?

There was no furniture but an old rusting toilet, and it was large enough for an oven and a bed. Well-made wooden flooring. Much more clean-looking than he'd expected, from the exterior. Certainly livable.

"You're trespassin' on private property, sir."

Hiyan turned around. A hunched-over, mustached, tired-eyed fellow in black boots and work overalls shone a flashlight at him. "My house."

" _Your_ house?" Hiyan pointed at a patch of black mold on the wall. "How long?"

The man paled. "Well… haven't used it ever, but it belonged to my grandparents. Family… heirloom, I guess?"

Hiyan stepped toward him. "How much?"

"Sixty years, maybe? I know, it's fallin' apart, but you can't just –"

"No. Money. How much?"

The man frowned. "It ain't for _sale_."

Hiyan dug into his pockets, finding six hundred and twenty dollars. He'd saved it from what was left of his meager inheritance, coupled with selling rice and animal skins for a few years. "I have this much. I will fix it and care for it."

A gogoat bellowed in the distance, followed by a younger-sounding squeak in reply. It was evening – the sun was growing drowsy, and the day-dwellers were beginning to retire to caves and burrows.

The man sighed. "That's nothin'. Grocery money. You'll need more than _that_."

"I will work for you, then, until it is paid. How much?"

"You can't be _serious._ Where're you from, anyway? You don't seem like you're from the States."

"India. My name is Hiyan. How much?"

The man wrung his hands. "I don't know. No one's ever asked me for it, honestly. It's crumblin' as we speak. No runnin' water; the toilet stopped working ages ago. I've had no idea what to do with it…"

Hiyan stepped forward and held the money near the man's chest. "Then, sell it to me. I will put it to good use."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Well… I mean… what you have is… better 'n _nothin',_ I guess. You know how to hoe and weed a field?"

"I made this money by doing that. I… came to America for better work. A better life. This is all I have."

The man studied him. "…All right, then how's about you give me five 'undred, and come over 'n tend my vegetable patches every day for the next two years… and I'll… consider it paid."

"Done."

They shook hands.

* * *

Ao Zhi stood at her metal office desk at 9:45, scribbling a daily report for the Chief. Today she'd intervened in a few brawls outside a bar – in the middle of the day, which was unusal for bar fights. Someone had insulted someone's mother, and the disgruntled offendee had released his entire team of _eight,_ commanding them to release an onslaught of fire-encased boulders at his poor insulter.

She shook her head, amused. Not only had he blatantly gone over the legal limit of six personal pokemon on-hand, he'd released them in a bar which allowed no pokemon other than authorized guard animals, fractured his victim's rib, destroyed thousands of dollars worth of bar furniture, and done all of it while she and Ryo happened to be strolling by on their street patrol.

Ryo had swiftly brought the man's team to their knees with his well-trained sceptile and gallade, and she'd restrained the trainer against the wall, handcuffed him, and informed him of his right to due process. Not that it would have done him much _good._

She looked up, as the chief was approaching.

"Officer Jackson." Chief Farashi was a thick man with muscles of brick, and if she weren't Legendary, she'd probably be intimidated by him. He seemed to stare into her soul every time he met her eyes, and at times she wondered despite herself if _he_ was psychic, without her realizing.

She nodded, composing herself. "Chief Farashi?"

"The local training camp is offering us a female arcanine for a discounted price. Excellent animal. Intelligent, hard-working, high endurance. Are you sure you don't want me to sign you up for her?"

She cringed. "Thank you, Chief. I appreciate the offer. I respectfully decline."

Surprising her, Farashi planted both hands on her desk and leaned forward, glaring at her. "This is the fifth time you've declined my offer, and I would like a clear reason as to why you refuse to work with pokemon, Jackson."

"It's a deeply personal, religious matter, sir. I respect all officers who work with pokemon and treat them as equals. I, for my own reasons, choose not to work with them, though I appreciate their purpose and their excellent service in this work."

They met each other's eyes for some time. Farashi was concerned about how it would look to the local training camp if he kept refusing their deals. He knew the owner well, and wanted to keep his business…

"Sir, I am sure that my partner, Tanaka-san, would be honored to accept such an animal."

"He already has _seven,_ " Farashi rumbled, rubbing his temples. "I'll… find someone else. Your report?"

"Finished," she replied, handing the folder to him. "Nothing exceptional today. The usual."

Farashi opened the folder, rifling through the papers. He was still worried about the arcanine… "Good enough." His eyes met hers again. "I've… never heard of a religion that forbids training pokemon."

"It's… an ancient brand of Shinto," she said, even though legally, she was not required to disclose personal matters to her chief. "It has to do with the sacredness of nature spirits."

"Hm." Chief's eyes narrowed. "My grandmother says she's Shinto, but all she does about it is light incense every couple of days."

She forced herself to keep all irritation out of her facial features. "Everyone practices differently…"

Blessedly, she recognized the mind of one of the secretaries, who peeked into her office and announced, "Officer Jackson-san?"

She looked at Chief expectantly, who nodded. "Yes?" he grumbled.

"An elderly woman named Naka has come, asking to speak with Officer Jackson."

Azi took her bag and bowed. "Good evening, sir."

"Konbanwa," he replied absentmindedly, still poring through the files.

Outside, Naka sat clutching a knapsack, with worry etched into her wrinkles. Azi's eyes widened, and the moment before she opened her mouth to speak, the woman's swirling, spiraling thoughts entered her mind and nearly made her choke.

Shaking, she took the woman's hand and looked back over her shoulder, at Chief Farashi in the other room. "Permission to leave work ten minutes early, sir? A family emergency has occurred."

The Chief did not seem to hear, but the secretary looked at him, then back to her, and nodded. "Go."

Azi held Naka's arm as they left the building, entering the cool night air under the fluorescent streetlamps. The woman was trembling. "Breathe, Naka. It's all right. I'll help you figure it out. Slow your thoughts and tell me every detail."

The woman then turned to her, clutching at Azi's shoulders and shaking her head. "Don't you understand? They've… they've discovered my _husband._ They're going to take him away from me… They're going to take all of us!" A tear escaped the corners of the woman's eyes.

"They're not going to take _anyone_ , said Azi, stroking the woman's head. "It's all right. Let me come to your home. I'll speak with you and Father. Everything will be all right."

"Yes, come, come," mumbled Naka, nodding numbly. "You and he… will know what to do…"

Sighing, Azi took the woman into her arms, wishing she had Mey's ability to inject calm into people's minds. Actually, she wished Mey were here to inject calm into _her_ mind, because despite what she'd told Naka, she frankly had no _idea_ what to do.

Someone had stolen the Griseous Orb.


	11. Elusive

elusive -

Arceus rifled through his historical tomes, his rune-carved boxes, his dust-coated chests, coughing as old dirt assaulted his throat and eyes. He pinched his forehead in frustration. Whoever it was hadn't left a _trace._ No footprints, no scent, no objects even an inch out of place. Everything was exactly as it had been before he'd left that morning to tend to the orphanage across the road, but the Orb had vanished like a shadow in evening, just like Gira himself had slipped into oblivion.

But the _strangest_ part of it all… wasn't the lack of evidence of the theft.

Arceus wrapped his spare-change box in a thin cloth and set it back in its place, sighing. The strangest part of it all wasn't even the fact that it was happening _now,_ an entire decade after Giratina's return, after most activity among the Legendaries had once again quieted and settled back into human-disguised routine…

…No, the strangest part of it all was that he was… at _peace._

Ao Zhi knocked at the door, and he straightened himself. She always knocked so loudly, as if she wanted all of the answers before she even knew what half of the questions were. As he turned the brass doorknob, he tried to remember what it was like to be that young… and failed.

"Lord Alpha," said the black-haired girl, bowing hastily and rushing into his dark, warm house. Naka came in behind her and gave him a thin smile, which he returned. "You already touched everything in the room?" Ao Zhi called from his office, sounding incredulous.

He stepped forward and rubbed Naka's shoulders, attempting to soothe the woman. "Yes, daughter." He lowered his voice. "Thank you for not bringing other humans with you," he added to his wife.

Naka's eyes were slightly moist as she shook her head, reaching forward and clasping his hands. "Yes, of course. It would be dangerous for humans to know about it…"

"Alpha." Ao Zhi's voice.

Arceus nodded hastily and turned toward his office, small and yellow with lamplight. He marveled again at that strange sensation that he was still, somehow, feeling. There was an odd warmth in his chest, as if someone was telling him that all would be well, that fear had no place here… almost like the calming influence of Mey She's presence, but somewhat… different.

Ao Zhi was standing with her hands on her hips, scanning the room with tight eyes. "Sir… if you rifle with everything in the crime scene, I can't get as good of a fingerprint reading..."

"Of course. My apologies."

She met his eyes, and then something changed in them, and she straightened her arms and bowed again, as if remembering that she'd just scolded the Alpha. But if he was honest with himself, it had been a wretchedly long time since he'd ruled over the court of immortals from a gilded throne, and he no longer felt it necessary to demand utmost respect from his sons and daughters in the way they addressed him. "Ao Zhi, tell me what you suspect," he said gently, clasping his hands behind his back.

"Hm." Ao Zhi went to his desk and studied the little box that the Orb had been kept in. "I mean… this hasn't ever happened before. You've never been robbed… am I wrong?"

He thought back. "Perhaps once or twice in my lifetime…"

"I mean, this _intentionally._ No one's ever come for such a specific thing as this and then left without taking anything else." Her gold-brown eyes snapped up. " _Did_ they take anything else?"

Naka slowly came in through the door. "Nothing else." Her voice was even.

Ao Zhi reached into her black bag. "Well, they obviously knew what they were doing, and what it was that they were looking for. They may or may not know who _you_ are, but I wouldn't risk doubting that they do..." She pulled out a pair of gloves and a small jar of talcum powder.

Arceus nodded. "Who could it be, then?" He put his hand on Naka's back. "Perhaps it was just a human looking for a valuable jewel."

Naka looked at him, eyes wide. "And they didn't take your emerald ring? Our Iranian tapestries? My grandmother's _china_?"

He smirked. "Perhaps they… wanted to be subtle."

Ao Zhi was leaning over the desk, carefully powdering the box. "I'll keep these fingerprints secret. Nobody will know about this personal case that I'm working on." She looked up. "Of course, I'll need to take both of your prints, too, so we can differentiate…"

"Do you think it was a human or a pokemon, Azi?" asked Naka, stepping forward. "In all honesty, what do you think?"

Ao Zhi stood for a minute, moving her mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. Finally, she shrugged. "If it was a human, it was an _expert._ Someone who was hired to do this… perhaps by someone who believes that the Legendaries exist."

"Team Galactic, perhaps?" Arceus said quietly.

She shrugged. "It's a likely guess. Either that, or…" Trailing off, she put her equipment back into her back, sighing.

Naka took her arm. "Finish the sentence, girl."

"Well, maybe it's a _ghost,"_ she burst out. "I'm the least superstitious of all of us, but if it's not a human, then what _is_ it? Something that knows about Gira, that knows how to evade me and other psychics. Ghosts have always held a grudge against us. I mean, they've always sided with Gira against the rest of us, as only he truly understood them..."

Arceus stiffened. "The ghosts are not all evil spirits, Ao Zhi. I will _not_ start another war against them."

"Yes, but what if _they_ want to target _us_ again? Use Gira as a… a pawn _?_ Resume the power they once held over mankind?"

"They wouldn't do such a thing. The ghosts do not know where Gira is _,_ daughter. And they have forgotten the Dark War. It was one thousand _years_ ago."

Ao Zhi stepped toward him. "Gira gave them power in that war, more than they'd ever dreamed of, and you took it away from them by banishing him. For the good of the world, of course, but being semi-immortal, they probably haven't forgotten about it. Where _is_ Gira, Father?"

There was a silence then. The warmth in his chest had fled some time ago, and he ached to feel it again. It was a familiar warmth… the same warmth he'd felt in the ancient days, in fact. The sign from heaven that he was doing his duty correctly. The confirmation of truth, of good things to come…

"Lady Ao Zhi, we must be calm about this."

The girl took a slow breath. "Yes, sir. I just – "

"I will show you your eldest brother. You will see his face."

Stunned, the girl widened her eyes.

"You too, my dear," he added, looking sideways at Naka. "You ought to see the peace in his eyes." He turned. "Come with me, please."

With that, he exited his office.

* * *

 _By 1500 B.C., there were twelve known immortals: the three aforementioned dragons, in addition to Dialga, the Four Golems, Miu, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza. The Five Birds and the Yin-Yang Dragons, as we like to call them, would soon emerge in the next few centuries. I would not be born until the years of Anno Domini._

 _Arceus was, for lack of a better phrase, a benevolent dictator. He discovered each of the immortals in turn, introducing himself as their Alpha and teaching his subjects not to harm humans (unless dire circumstances necessitated it). In this era of history, it was perhaps a bit difficult, but a reasonable enough request to accommodate. Humans were not nearly as populous as they are now, and it seemed that if we left them alone, they would, in turn, leave us alone._

 _However, like many other species of pokemon, the legendaries were incurably curious about the human world. They visited villages now and again, observing this peculiarly dextrous and intelligent species, attempting to make heads or tails of what humans really were, and what all their inventions were._

 _As a result of this interaction, humans could not help but observe our immortal nature and, as a result of our living forever and having plenty of time to train, our extremely adept magical skills. They gave us royal names and ascribed to us divine origins._

 _Humankind adored the immortals. They wrote stories about us, sculpted impressions of us, painted us, composed songs and poems and legends that were only sometimes true. Arceus, who loved humans the most and strived to protect them, was the most commonly featured in their monuments and temples. He soon became God to them: the incarnation of universal benevolence; the creator of the universe and all life upon it. The other dragons and beasts of seismic power populated the pantheon: the eternal spirits of the Earth, of the sky and sea and underworld, who were all gods and goddesses in their eyes. Mostly false, but attractive, philosophies._

 _The immortals paid little heed to the statues and memorials, as we did not know what to think of them. Most of us did not even realize that the humans worshipped us at all. (That is, until we became human, which would not happen until I reached my adolescence.)_

 _Giratina remained elusive. He rarely appeared to the humans, and when he did, he was most likely enjoying them for dinner. The other immortals had acquiesced to Arceus's request to preserve human life as much as possible because, being six thousand years older than all of them, he could be fiercely threatening if they didn't obey. But Giratina was still a thousand years older than this incoming generation; thus he was still much stronger than them, and felt rather above them all. Especially as he hadn't even seen the great white-and-gold horse in some five hundred years, he fancied he had no reason to obey._

 _His arrogance was and always has been foolish, and he knew that, but superiority is a seductive ideology._

 _Around this time, he was beginning to unravel certain abilities that only he possessed within himself, and could not learn from most other pokemon. Namely, his ability to pass through walls, to make himself as light as air, as thin as sound. This took him centuries to develop, as the only other beings on earth who possessed even a modicum of this ability were ghosts – and ghosts, generally, do not prefer to interact with one another, but to keep to themselves._

 _It soon came to him that he was more ghost than dragon. Dragons, like most mortal animals, were unintelligent. Brutishly powerful, but dim. Ghosts, however, seemed to possess the emotions and intellect of humans. He considered himself rather intelligent, although he cautioned himself that it could have been wishful thinking. He was right, however - and all the legendaries possessed vast intelligence like he did, but this was perhaps for a different reason._

 _The humans called Giratina the scourge of the night; the kidnapper of children who stayed out late and disobeyed their parents; the punisher of evil rulers. Some even named him the devil itself._

 _Giratina is not the devil, but there is a devil, who knew and still knows the light and darkness inside Giratina's heart. Soon, a fierce battle between the two would commence: the same battle which rages in the hearts of every being, mortal or otherwise, who has ever existed on this planet._

* * *

Naka let go of Arceus's papery hand as he slowly knelt in the center of their guestroom.

His back was always straight as an oak tree, that man. Very little in this world could destabilize him. Even when they'd agreed to marry fourteen years ago and he'd knelt before her, his demeanor had been as calm as the ocean. Even when he laughed at one of her ill-composed jokes, his smile was quiet… and slow.

"Will you take us there or just show us a vision?" she asked him, while his back was to her.

Ao Zhi squeezed her elbow from behind her. _Be quiet,_ came the old girl's voice into her mind. _He's meditating. He'll take us physically there, but first he has to aim his path of travel…_

She fell silent then. Naka found it laughable that she was the youngest one in the room by far, when Ao Zhi looked to be her granddaughter, and even her husband's hair was still an even mixture of black and grey. She was encased in gray and wrinkles, and far closer to death than birth. It was the one thing she refused to let herself think about… except when she was surrounded by immortals, and she couldn't _help_ but think about it.

"There is a cave," Arceus murmured softly. "A dark place where I usually go to, to observe him. It will be suitable to bring you both there. There is no one watching." He stood up, turned and held out his hands for her and Azi to take. He'd only shown Naka the full extent of his abilities a handful of times, and she still felt herself fill up with excitement at the thought of it.

"Lord Alpha," Ao Zhi said, taking his left hand in her right hand as she bowed. "Thank you for listening to me."

The man smiled softly and closed his eyes, clasping both of their hands. "I felt the divine warmth, daughter. I have determined that this is the correct course of action."

 _Divine warmth,_ Naka echoed in her mind. _He uses that phrase all the time. I think he uses it to describe the voice of -_

The universe heaved, twisted, and ripped.

Gasping, Naka lurched forward and grabbed his arm with her whole body, but she was simultaneously perfectly stable and hurtling through space. He'd done this only once before with her, but she'd forgotten how… _wrong_ it felt. His eyes were closed, his face unmoving, his back as straight as the earth was round. Nausea rippled through her and pain flew behind her eyes, and the world was a dark blur behind his ancient face…

Then, like waking up, everything was normal again, and she melted to the ground, her strength collapsing and her vision growing dim.

"Naka, Naka." Arceus's hands were under her arms, supporting her. "Breathe in and out. Slowly, slowly."

She did so, feeling her heart thrum irregularly, and the nausea swirl within her like the ocean after a storm; still disturbed by the upheaval, but slowly returning to its normal state. When she managed to open her eyes, Arceus's calm face was before her, and he put one cold hand under her jaw, feeling her pulse. "Breathe more deeply, through your nose. It's all right, it's over."

She felt Azi kneel behind her and place both hands on her back, rubbing her slowly and gently. _He didn't warn you, did he?_

 _Well, he's done it before, and I should have gotten used to it by now…_ She smirked up at her husband. "I'm fine, really, I'm fine. This is nothing I can't handle."

"Of course not," he replied, winking and kissing her lightly on her forehead before standing up. He rubbed his thumb and third forefinger together, lighting a small candlefire in his hand. The light filled the dark cave and nearly blinded her, reminding her of where they were.

 _Actually… where are we?_

The air was moist and warm, but not uncomfortably so. From what she could see, the cave was the size of a small cottage, with walls smooth with hard-packed rock. It looked like it had been hollowed out many years ago, perhaps by an older civilization.

"He is a farmworker," Arceus murmured as he and Azi helped her to her feet. "In the grasslands of central Colorado. We are inside a hill, overlooking the place where he works."

Naka nodded as they walked slowly toward the light at the mouth of the cave. She'd forgotten that it was high noon in America, while it had been the middle of the night in Japan. "And… dear, is he happy?"

"I would say so," muttered Arceus. "I cannot hear minds, but perhaps Ao Zhi will have something to say on that subject… if we draw near enough."

She felt Azi's arm stiffen around her elbow. "Sir, would that be… allowed?"

"Perhaps it may not be wise, but I should like to hear his mind." Something old and sad was in his voice.

 _He misses him sorely,_ Azi remarked to Naka's mind. Naka had no psychic abilities, but psychics could project thoughts into her mind, if they wished. _He was like… the prodigal son. Frankly, I would love nothing more than to hear this man's mind. I haven't listened to it since just before he was banished. But if he saw me, he might vaguely recognize me… unless Xi's gotten a lot better at erasing memories…_

They approached the light, and Naka shielded her eyes from the sun.

She'd known of Arceus's grief over his wayward son ever since before she'd known this man was Arceus; long before they'd even talked about marriage. In his human disguise, he'd told her that his eldest son had been thrown in prison for murder, and that he'd give _anything_ to see the boy again, to help him through his darkness and back into the sunlight. After hearing this, she'd finally understood how good of a heart this man had.

Arceus stopped in his stride. They were just outside the mouth of the cave. Yellow-green stretched before them in every direction. Rolling hills, patchwork fields, fluffy trees dotted here and there like dabs of paint. Naka sighed as a breeze flitted through her hair.

"Did you decide on this place?" Azi asked.

"He did," said Arceus, nodding as he led them cautiously forward. "He asked your sister to place him somewhere he wouldn't recognize, but somewhere safe and calm."

They hiked slowly down the hillside, toward a large patch of grains. Naka could make out several human shapes as they drew closer. Little brown-clothed people, slaving away under the sun.

"He is there, in the field," said her husband, very quietly.

"Oh," said Azi, startling forward and gasping oddly. "Oh."

Naka's eyes widened as the girl stumbled toward the field, clutching her hands together. "Can we go to the bottom of the hill?"

"Just that far," said Arceus, putting a hand on Naka's back. _Do not fear._

She nodded and drew forward. Arceus could not hear minds, but his thousands of years of practice with mind-magic allowed him to project thoughts to non-psychics every now and then. It was difficult for him to do it without physical contact, however.

"Archie, I'm not _afraid_ ," muttered Naka, eyeing him. "I've never been afraid of anything."

"No, never," he chuckled. "In fact, sometimes you've been brave to a fault."

"And so have you," she reminded him.

Before them, Azi was streaming down the hill, moving with the agility of a fairy. _Be careful, girl,_ Naka called mentally.

 _You needn't remind me._

The field grew taller as they descended to the foot of the hill. It was just sprouting, as it was only mid-April. The workers in the field, perhaps nine hundred yards away from them now, wore wide-brimmed hats and muddy boots, hunched over in a steady, heaving rhythm.

"He is that one there, closest to us," said Arceus.

Azi suddenly stopped in her tracks, and her hands slowly came up to clutch her slender, but well-muscled, arms. Even as the girl's back was to her, Naka could feel the emotion streaming out of the girl, like a tidal wave.

"Quiet your thoughts, Ao Zhi," Arceus warned in a low voice. "The men mustn't hear you."

 _I don't recognize this mind, sir. It's not him. It can't be him. But… it's him. Is it him_? The thoughts were sent to both Arceus and Naka.

"It is."

There was a silence for a long time as the breeze softly played at Naka's hair, and the men's equipment scraped at the ground like claws. She squinted, trying to make out Giratina's face. She could only see a vague clay-colored head. His movements were slow, accurate, precise. Calm, even.

 _Father, there's not a drop of anger in him. He's… so… pure. So new.  
_

It was rare when Azi referred to Arceus as "father," and he relaxed next to Naka. "Yes, daughter. As a newborn child."

Naka looked up at Arceus. His graceful, regal face was fixated on the man before them, the tiniest hint of a smile on his lips. "And this is why I am so careful not to interfere. If he could remain this way, human and happy, working as an honest, humble man, with no desire for contention… I would be very satisfied."

The words rang hollow in Naka's mind. "It won't last forever, dearest," she whispered. "He's immortal."

 _You are right, of course._

A bell rang in the distance, and like clockwork, the men straightened up and put away their tools, coming into the little shed. Lunch break, perhaps. Giratina stretched his ragged-clothed arms and glanced over in Naka's direction.

The three of them froze. For an eternal millisecond, Naka almost wondered if he made eye contact with them.

And then he turned and followed the men. He moved with an old, tired sort of strength, and disappeared through a rickety door.

"He doesn't know _anything_ ," murmured Azi in an emotionless voice. "He doesn't know that he has powers, or that he's deathless. He doesn't know your face or mine. He doesn't know that he used to kill humans and pokemon for sport. Xi was absolutely thorough. He is completely emptied…"

"But he is not _empty,"_ said Arceus, stepping forward and putting his hands on Azi's shoulders. "Do you hear what I see?"

"He's… content," said the girl quietly, and it seemed as if something had caught in her throat. "Happier than he has… ever been." She put a light hand over her father's.

They seemed to have a mental conversation then, through the touch of a hand, and Naka bowed her head, closing her eyes.


	12. Master Ball

master ball –

Wiping sweat from her carefully-plucked eyebrows, Dawn looked at the clock for the eight trillionth time. Five thirty. _Only half an hour left._

People were bustling around the white-walled office floor, hauling papers and packages and pokeballs, speaking a mile a minute on phones and headsets, surrounding her in a controlled tornado of commerce. She was almost used to this feverish money machine, after two months of working at Silph Norwich. What she _wasn't_ used to was the sheer amount of work that Catherine White expected _one_ executive assistant to accomplish in one eight-hour work day.

There was simply no downtime. Maybe enough to get a sip or two of water while running full-speed from meeting to meeting, typing notes and emailing them off, calling manufacturers and often-incompetent store managers, recording proof of product quality, among fifteen other daily tasks she could name off the top of her head. It occurred to her that she _had_ signed up for this, knowing full well what the workload was, but… well, it had been a while since she'd been in a company this… intense.

Five thirty-two. _Twenty-eight minutes left!_

The _best_ part of the job, of course, was when she got to oversee the testing of the products on the pokemon. She had to make sure the paperwork was all accounted for on every single potion, every single pokeball, to make sure it worked safely and smoothly for all thirty test species of pokemon. They used everything from insect larvae to monkeys to adult dragons, and if that wasn't enough, they rotated the species every three weeks, to ensure thorough testing. That meant that she got to register about _twenty_ new species to her personal Pokedex a month, as that was about how many she didn't already have registered as "seen" – and if she was lucky, and it happened to be a "low" day (which occurred maybe twice a month) – she was allowed to venture into the testing facility and interact with the pokemon _herself._

She almost giggled to herself thinking about it, as she typed up her notes from the most recent customer service meeting. She'd convinced the research team that the creatures all required regular social interaction and a healthy dose of daily play; otherwise, they'd turn cranky and aggressive, and they could taint the results with mental health problems incurred as a simple result of being lab pokemon. While they assured her that they were all released to their natural habitat after their three-week "shift," she couldn't bear the thought of how those things felt locked up in cages, nothing to do all day, until it was their turn to get into a series of pokeballs.

She sighed happily, remembering her recent encounter with a shiny altaria. It was possibly the most beautiful thing she'd ever _seen._ Fluffy like a cloud, with gold head-feathers as bright as the sun. How the collection team had managed to find _that_ kind of creature out in the wild, she'd love to know…

"Ikeda-chan."

Her head snapped up. It was one of the inventory managers, Teresa Blanchard, whose tumbling red hair reminded her of ketchup. She was the only other member of the branch who spoke a drop of Japanese, and Dawn had latched on to her immediately. "White wants you in the executive meeting."

She simultaneously felt heat and cold rush to her face, if that was even possible. "Uh… Catherine White? Ms. White, the president? Wants _me_? I'm just an assistant, though."

"Dr. Catherine White, Branch President, queen of the universe, wants you, Assistant Dawn Ikeda, _in_. Ten minutes. 'Chin up, back straight, smile bright,'" Teresa added, feigning the president's posh accent as she gave Dawn a quick wink before rushing forward.

Dawn's eyes widened. "Doctor?"

"She has doctorates in astronomy and quantum physics," Teresa called from over her shoulder. "Likes to keep it on the down low, though. Prefers 'Miss.' Don't bloody know why. Told me over tea yesterday. Seemed almost embarrassed about it. Bye!"

Dawn sat back in her chair, shaking her head. _Who has the time or patience to get two doctorates? And then get a job that has nothing to do with any of those things? She is an entirely different species of human than I am._ She made some last-minute revisions, hit "send," and watched the progress bar slowly turn from white to dark grey as the email finally reached its addressee. _Someday I hope they make email work faster than this…_

Five thirty-five. _Twenty-five minu –_

 _TEN minutes left!_

With a jolt, she stood up. _Too much to do in just ten minutes!_ She ran out of her chair and almost crashed into Henry, the copy machine man, with a colossal stack of printer paper.

"Sorry, Henry!" she cried, running toward the product archive.

"Happens all the time," she though she heard him grumble from behind her.

 _I can find that discontinued pokeball sticker and email the disgruntled customer back in ten minutes, right? I can be polite and thorough and reasonable and explanatory in just ten minutes! Sure I can! Provided the product isn't nowhere to be found, or my computer doesn't crash again, or the customer doesn't reply again demanding more discounts!_ She wiped her forehead again, turning the doorknob. _As Dr. White would say: chin up, back straight, smile bright!_

* * *

Catherine sighed as she looked down on Seventh Street from her office window, watching young children buy armfuls of pink balloons and candies. There was some festival going on that had been invented in recent decades. Likely by chocolate companies, to convince humans to give them more money. National Jigglypuff Day, or some other sort of rubbish.

"Cath, I honestly have no idea." Azi's somewhat husky voice, through the phone speaker. They'd agreed a long time ago to use pseudonyms over the phone, as there was no telling if someone could pick up unneeded information. "I mean, psychic pokemon are hard to find as it is, and even the oldest and smartest ones are generally only able to pick up the general tenor of someone's thoughts. Sure, they can launch mental attacks that can give someone a massive headache, but they can't summon and suppress entire emotions or sniff out specific memories like… like some maybe could."

Catherine nodded. "I was afraid of that. My team goes on and on about how it could be so expensive to procure enough espeon and alakazam to read our subjects' thoughts regarding the quality of the pokeball experience, but… oh, if only it were possible…"

"Yeah. I mean, you could try. I don't know if it would be worth your money."

"Hm." She closed her window and glanced at her sapphire-embedded watch. "Well, I'll have to leave to a staff meeting in eight minutes. It was nice to hear your voice, Amanda."

"What kind of meeting?"

She cringed. "Oh, Team Galactic's tried to hack into our systems again."

"They _what?_ "

She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she tried to put on her suit jacket, but it was too hard to balance, so she briefly conjured up a bit of wind-magic to keep the phone afloat while she slipped it on. "Yes, they seem rather hungry for our online databases. I'll admit, we've a rich supply of biological information about _gobs_ of species, and how they best respond to pokeballs. Seeing as they just _love_ to mass-capture pokemon, especially the more difficult-to-manage ones, they'd love the kind of information I have. I _hate_ that I have that information, of course, but… well, it's a necessary evil…"

Azi was silent for a bit.

"Are you able to hear me?"

"Yeah. Cath, there's something you need to know."

She glanced at her watch again. "I have five minutes."

"The Griseous Orb has been stolen."

She almost dropped the phone. Gira's face came into her mind, and she refused to dwell on that horrible emptiness in his eyes. She lowered her voice to a furious, hushed tone. "My dear sister, might we prefer to speak of this _elswhere_ – "

"I took fingerprints, searched databases everywhere. No results. I think it's Galactic. I mean, they've stated on TV interviews that they believe in Legendaries. The world shrugged it off and made laughingstocks of them, but don't you think they're… onto something? Before I thought it was ghosts, but after hearing about what they just did to you, I thought maybe…"

Catherine tugged at her sleeves nervously. "I'd… rather speak of this in a different time and place, if you please."

"…Could you come… visit me? I need your help. Father is being oddly… _relaxed_ about the whole thing."

"Perhaps… this weekend? My evenings this week are full of meetings." She sighed, imagining what Azi's face must look like. This girl had been her emotional bedrock ever since she had become human a millennium and a half ago, and for all the wonderful help Azi had been in helping her adjust toward her new human shape, the little psychic had a tendency towards paranoia.

Then again… Catherine wasn't psychic, and didn't know what it was like to listen to the nasty thoughts of all the unscrupulous characters surrounding her. "Frankly, I'd like to visit you, too, as there's a lot on my mind. But don't fret yourself senseless in the meantime, please."

"That's what Father said, but I'm a police officer. I don't know how to relax."

She smirked knowingly. "Try your best, then. Drink some tea, get a massage. I'll call you in two hours."

"…Thanks." _Click._

Catherine rubbed her temples. The last thing she needed before going into a room full of humans was to converse with an immortal psychic. It set her brain on a different mental track, and she had to work to get it back into "human mode," as she sometimes called it.

She pressed her fingers together, feeling their calloused pale skin, their French-manicured nails, their human-ness. _I am Catherine White, president of Silph Norwich. I am a typical human being._

 _…And I'm probably being targeted by Team Galactic… as is my dear father…_

Shaking her head in exasperation, she opened the door. _I'm also a five-thousand-year-old goddess of galaxies, and a thirteen-foot, winged dragon, to boot. The minute they find out who I am…_

She refused to let herself complete that sentence, and she entered the conference chamber, where twenty-one humans stood up from their seats and nodded in respect.

"Thank you for your patience," she said, motioning for them to sit. "Let us proceed."

* * *

Dawn sat back in her cushioned purple chair as Catherine White swept into the room and hushed all sound. It had been a while since she'd spoken with this woman, and it hit her suddenly that every inch of her was perfect. Not a wrinkle, not a hair out of place. It was as if she spent every last minute of her day, every last pound of her savings account, on her physical appearance.

 _Actually, she's probably richer than the Queen,_ she thought idly. _She's the president of a national Pokemart supplier. I've never seen a store that's not thoroughly saturated with the Silph logo._

Catherine White gracefully took her place at the head of the table, and immediately everyone straightened up and took out their notebooks and folders.

 _I have to give her more credit. In the interview, she expressed very fervently that she cares a lot about pokemon and their well-being. Just like I do. And with two doctorates, she's obviously smarter than a beeheeyem…_

There was a careful silence while Ms. White procured her glasses, a few papers, and a pen. "I'm sure you all know what I'm about to discuss."

A few rumbles of "Yes, ma'am."

Dawn shuffled nervously. _She's… not going to talk about the scandal, is she?_

"Fifteen hours ago, at two-thirty A.M. this morning, an unidentified presence hacked into our databases and accessed information including, but not limited to…" She cleared her throat and held up a small document. "Statistics of successful and failed captures of fifty-two different types of pokeballs and five hundred different species… records of discontinued balls and the reason for discontinue…" She then lowered over the paper and gazed out from over the rims of her glasses. "…And one record of possible Master Ball production."

Silence.

Dawn's mother had told her about Master Balls. When her mother was in her contesting heyday, Master Balls, the newest invention of Silph Co., had been all the rage. It could catch even a Legendary, the headlines proclaimed, although nobody really believed in Legendaries. It was just a buzz word.

But around the time Dawn was born, production slammed on the brakes. It was making all the other pokeballs obsolete, and Silph's competitors had banded together and threatened to file some kind of anti-monopoly lawsuit. To avoid bankruptcy, the Master Ball ended. These days, it could only be found in black markets, auctions, and lotteries. Her father's mother had won one in a lottery, but last Dawn had heard, the woman had just stashed it in a dusty drawer somewhere. _A good luck charm,_ Grandma Annie had joked. _In case a tyranitar ever comes crashing through my door, I can lob it at the thing and avoid getting eaten!_

"Pardon me, ma'am," spoke up a middle-aged man from the back of the table, near where Dawn was sitting. "Do you refer to _recent_ production of Master Balls?

" _Recent,"_ the woman growled, putting down her papers and folding her hands. "I am not at all pleased to obtain this report, and neither should any of you be. This puts us in grave danger."

"Ma'am, they aren't illegal, just discontinued."

Ms. White stood up then, leaning forward over the table. "I am speaking of _production_ of Master Balls, by one of our own _people_. I mean one of our manufacturers digging up the hidden blueprints, unauthorized. I do not have their name or location; I only have one timestamp of the Master Ball prototype being accessed recently, and the data regarding who accessed it subsequently becoming corrupted and unviewable. I can only _assume_ it was being leaked to some other entity."

"Team Galactic?" Dawn found herself saying. All heads immediately turned to her, including Ms. White's, and she forced herself not to blush, but to relax her face and shoulders. Like she did during contests, when audience and countless TV screens gaped at her.

"I beg your pardon, but I neglected to introduce you," replied Ms. White. Her voice relaxed somewhat. "For those who haven't had the pleasure, this is Executive Assistant Dawn Ikeda, our newest hire. And what do you know of Team Galactic, dear?"

She took a deep breath. "They came to international prominence just a year ago. They kind of terrorized my hometown last year, stealing pokemon from a few of my neighbors who were trainers. And they could have stolen these balls. I wouldn't put it past them."

A few heads nodded in agreement. She willed her heart to stop pounding.

Ms. White narrowed her eyes. "They've been an absolute nuisance for more than just a year, but you are right. They're famous for recruiting young trainers and promising them _unholy_ sums of money to steal pokemon for a living. Both national and international police have been onto them for years, but their leader remains an… enigma." She sat back down and cradled her chin in one hand. "I… do not like to jump to conclusions, however…"

Dawn nodded. "I just thought I'd throw out that idea, ma'am."

A tiny, tired smile came to the woman's lips before she scanned the room. "And the rest of you? What say you?"

There was an uncomfortable silence before one woman piped up, "It might not actually be anything. It could be that someone accidentally copy-and-pasted the file to something before realizing their mistake. They might have meant to grab a different prototype."

"They would have reported that _immediately,"_ retorted an older man. "Or at least, they should have. And it's archived, almost impossible to find unless you know what you're looking for."

Dawn's hand raced across her notebook, taking notes of all the points being thrown around. This wasn't a meeting that she'd been expressly required to take notes at, but she thought with the president herself in the room, it wouldn't hurt to demonstrate her dedication.

"Could've been Capsure," one man muttered, referring to Silph's largest pokeball-making competitor. "Could be trying to ride off of our success."

"Perhaps…" Ms. White muttered. "I will look into that. It does seem a bit more likely than Galactic…"

"And besides, what use would Galactic have for more pokeballs?" someone wondered out loud. "Their whole model is built on stealing pokemon that have already _been_ captured by trainers."

Pip and Bun's little faces came to Dawn's. Her crazy little penguin and her overexcited bunny, her first team members, as enthusiastic as she'd been as a child… disappearing without a trace. In her youth, she'd assumed that they'd run off and been hit by some car.

But… their _pokeballs_ had disappeared right along with them.

"Well, we aggressively marketed the slogan that it could capture a _Legendary_ ," a younger man laughed nervously, as if trying to break up the tension. "Maybe good ol' Galactic wants to see if it's actually true. There _have_ been claims that their leader's a complete lunatic."

A few chuckled at that comment. Dawn exchanged smiles with the man. Her family believed in Arceus, but they didn't believe in many of the other Legendaries. They mostly believed that it was a generally good idea to behave well and serve others, and Arceus would ensure that goodness would beget goodness in the next life. She wasn't sure if she believed everything her family did, but she definitely thought there was something to be said for living a life of goodness and generosity.

Catherine White cleared her throat again. "Does anybody here _actually_ believe in that slogan?"

A few shook their heads.

"That it can capture a Legendary?" the younger man, who Dawn remembered was named Ivan, said. "Uh, no. I think it's common knowledge that no one's ever seen a Legendary face to face. Not in modern history. I thought it was just to prove a point, that it had an unparalleled capture rate."

Ms. White chuckled, scratching her ear. "You're right, of course. Well, if their leader is indeed a lunatic, then I'm afraid there is an excellent possibility it's them. Aside from that…" She glanced around the room, sighing. "…I hired each one of you at this table because I deemed you trustworthy and competent. But we cannot afford to let this go without a full investigation. In the coming three days, each employee of Silph Co., around the world, will be electronically searched. Their emails, their files, their telephone records. This includes me, as well."

A blank silence filled the room.

"And as a result of me telling you this, you are bound to keep any electronic documents in your possession. If you delete anything, it will be flagged for suspicion." She removed her glasses. " _I'm_ not suspicious of you. But this is how the world works, and precautions must be taken. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, ma'am," several people said.

"Good," she said, crinkling her forehead. "This is… rather unprecedented. If any of you have suspicions about anyone specific in this company, you are legally compelled to notify me. The report will be received in full anonymity."

Dawn realized that she'd stopped writing some time ago. Some people had tense expressions, but most in the room were nodding in understanding.

Ms. White lowered her head to jot down a few notes on her paper, mumbling quietly to herself. Dawn looked around as the other board members exchanged low conversations with one another. A thought popped into her head, so she decided to clear her throat and ask, "Ms. White, I have a question."

The woman's deep brown eyes met hers. "Yes, Dawn?"

"…I'm just… curious. Do you think there's ever a chance that Silph would produce them again?"

Ms. White's eyes widened. "Absolutely not. They were terribly expensive to make, and attracted too much negative attention from our competitors."

"But if our _competitors_ are actually the ones trying to steal the prototype, then perhaps it would be wise for us to re-establish our ownership of them. We could launch it as a new edition of the product, maybe. It would certainly discourage others from trying to claim it for themselves." Dawn cringed. _Why am I being so forward about this?_

"We will not manufacture them again, Miss Ikeda. They are far too dangerous. Too expensive, too _powerful_ a machine to exist in the public sphere again." Ms. White stood back, rolled her chair back under the table, and adjusted her jacket, although it was already perfectly arranged around her shoulders. "Are there any further questions?"

The only reply was the shuffling of bags and papers.

"Then I bid you all a pleasant evening." Her eyes very briefly met Dawn's before she exited the room.

* * *

 _Giratina found Dialga before anyone else did. The latter was just a dragonling, only slightly older than Palkia had been when she was discovered by Arceus. Dialga was wingless but heavily armored in steel, and Giratina immediately recognized him as unique. There was no other creature on earth like Dialga._

 _Of course, the natural course of action was to battle the navy-colored thing, to see if it really was an immortal, like himself. Sadly, Giratina had considerably less tact than Arceus did, and he snuck up behind the poor thing and utterly flattened it before it could register the fact that it was being attacked._

 _To his credit, Dialga survived, and as soon as he recovered some few days later, he hunted down Giratina in his sleep and rewarded him with a good rake over the head with an ironclad claw. Overjoyed that the little thing was alive and well, Giratina continued the battle, going easy on the little creature, and discovered that he was really quite good when he was consciously aware of his aggressor. That is, until Giratina started testing out his newly disxcovered invisibility spells, and utterly destabilized Dialga once again._

 _After winning (or really, cheating his way through) his second battle with Dialga, he chalked it up to one more immortal who was beneath him, and walked away with his tail held high._

 _What he didn't realize was that Dialga was not only the future Lord of Time, but uncannily precocious. Even before his hundredth birthday, Dialga had developed the ability to see back into the past, relive events minute-for-minute, and learn from them in detail. This he did, repeatedly, and analyzed everything he'd done wrong in that battle with Giratina. He trained his way through this vision until he was certain he knew how to defeat this odd six-legged dragon._

 _He came back some few days later, challenged Giratina again, and defeated him soundly. As a consolation prize, Dialga bowed to Giratina's bleeding body in respect, brought him a bushel of healing sitrus berries, and even hunted down a human corpse for Giratina to snack on._

 _And the oddest friendship known to history was born._


End file.
